H-POWER

With an 82 percent landfill diversion rate for municipal solid waste, better than some of the most progressive cities in the country, Honolulu is approaching how Japan and the most advanced European countries manage their waste. With a successful project for the beneficial reuse of ash, Honolulu’s landfill diversion rate would be greater than 90 percent, which would be a phenomenal achievement.

H-POWER serves an island community with limited resources that cannot readily haul waste to a neighboring county or state. Imagine the ramifications on the mainland if a county could not haul trash past the county line! H-POWER must be reliable, and resilient, including redundancy to be sustainable. H-POWER supplies up to 10 percent of Oahu’s electricity and is key in helping the state of Hawai‘i achieve 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045 while minimizing landfilling and continues to be a very important disposal method for special wastes that were formerly landfilled. H-POWER is a great example of a Public Private Partnership benefiting all parties involved: the City and County of Honolulu, Covanta Energy, and Hawaiian Electric Company.