{"id":861759,"date":"2026-09-26T21:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T21:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861759\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T21:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T21:22:15","slug":"hawaiian-electric-still-plans-to-retire-mauis-fossil-fuel-plants-despite-epa-easing-greenhouse-gas-restrictions-maui-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861759\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaiian Electric still plans to retire Maui\u2019s fossil fuel plants despite EPA easing greenhouse gas restrictions : Maui Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\"\"The Kahului Power Plant\u2019s smokestack and surrounding facilities are seen on Oct. 2, 2025. HJI \/ COLLEEN UECHI photo <\/p>\n

Hawaiian Electric says two major fossil fuel-fired power plants on Maui are still on track to retire even after the federal government recently eased restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

The Environmental Protection Agency said last week that it was repealing most of the Biden administration\u2019s greenhouse gas requirements<\/a> for U.S. power plants. The EPA also was proposing rescinding all remaining greenhouse gas standards for the power sector.<\/p>\n

The agency argued the rules were \u201ceffectively forcing plants to retire rather than setting standards they could actually meet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawaiian Electric, which has been planning for years to retire the Kahului and M\u0101\u2018alaea power plants on Maui, said the EPA changes would \u201chave no effect\u201d on its facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revisions do not alter the company\u2019s commitment to Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s clean energy goals, renewable energy integration, grid modernization, or emissions reductions objectives,\u201d the company said in a statement to the Hawai\u2018i Journalism Initiative. \u201cThe EPA rules for GHG emissions also do not have any bearing on our intent to retire older units as part of our plan for the grids to integrate more renewable energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last decade, Hawaiian Electric has been pushing toward a goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045 under a state law passed in 2015<\/a>. The company had reached 37% renewable energy<\/a> across the five islands it serves as of 2025.<\/p>\n

Hawai\u2018i island is the most reliant on renewable energy at 57.3%, followed by Maui County at 41.6% and O\u2018ahu at 32.3%, according to Hawaiian Electric\u2019s 2025-26 sustainability report<\/a>.\u00a0Kaua\u02bbi is powered by the Kaua\u02bbi Island Utility Cooperative.<\/p>\n

As part of Hawaiian Electric\u2019s plan, the company has been investing in more renewable energy and battery storage projects while moving to retire fossil fuel-fired power plants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The M\u0101\u2018alaea Generating Station, located just off North K\u012bhei Road, is the largest source of power on the island at 212.1 megawatts. The facility has permits for a \u201ctiered closure of individual generating units between 2027 and 2032,\u201d according to Hawaiian Electric.<\/p>\n

The Kahului Power Plant, located near the harbor, has 37.6 megawatts. The plant has permits to retire its generating units by 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The fossil fuel-fired M\u0101\u2019alaea Generating Station is seen in November 2025, just down the road from the Kaheawa wind project on the slopes of Mauna Kahalawai, also known as the West Maui Mountains. HJI \/ COLLEEN UECHI photo<\/p>\n

In January, Hawaiian Electric started construction of the first standalone load-shifting battery energy storage system<\/a> on Maui that it said would allow it to retire the four generating units at the Kahului plant. The grid-connected Waena battery system includes 40 megawatts and 160 megawatt-hours.<\/p>\n

Maui County\u2019s renewable energy sources are primarily solar and wind. One of the biggest renewable projects on the horizon is the $241 million second phase of the K\u016bihelani Solar Project<\/a> in Central Maui that is expected to power about 18,425 homes annually for at least 20 years and at a fixed price.<\/p>\n

However, the planned closure of the power plants ran into a snag in May when the EPA partially rejected<\/a> Hawai\u2018i\u2019s 2024 Regional Haze State Implementation Plan, \u201cthus not approving the premature closure of several units at critical power plants,\u201d including Kahului. States are required to develop these types of plans to protect visibility and air quality around national parks under the Clean Air Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In July, Attorney General Anne Lopez filed a petition on behalf of the Hawai\u2018i Department of Health challenging the EPA\u2019s partial disapproval of the plan<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawaiian Electric said with the plan currently under appeal, \u201cit is not clear\u201d whether the retirement dates of the plants will be affected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is still our plan to retire these generating units in a reasonable timeframe as conditions allow,\u201d Hawaiian Electric said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company added that it planned to talk to the Hawai\u2018i Department of Health about \u201crevising Hawai\u2018i\u2019s long-term strategy to fulfill the requirements of the Regional Haze Rule, balance grid reliability and minimize impacts on our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac Moriwake, managing attorney of the Mid-Pacific Office of Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, said Hawaiian Electric\u2019s shift to renewable energy still holds despite the EPA\u2019s changes to greenhouse gas requirements because HECO is following state law.<\/p>\n

\u201cHawai\u2018i\u2019s not regulating plant pollution through these laws,\u201d Moriwake noted. \u201cIt is basically establishing a renewable energy requirement. \u2026 And then because we were pushing forward on renewable energy, the pollution reduction was happening along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Power lines run through a Kula neighborhood on July 10, 2025. HJI \/ COLLEEN UECHI photo<\/p>\n

When the EPA repealed the greenhouse gas requirements for power plants, it said the move would save billions of dollars and \u201crestore reliable and affordable baseload power.\u201d Energy Secretary Chris Wright said at the time that coal and natural gas help keep the lights on during periods of peak electricity demand.<\/p>\n

In addition to the cost savings and clean emissions of renewable energy, whose pricing has become much more competitive<\/a> in recent years, Moriwake thinks the argument that keeping fossil fuel plants alive would make energy reliable puts too much faith in an aging system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing reliable about relying on last century\u2019s technology as we\u2019re burning up the planet,\u201d he said, adding that recent storms \u201chave shown how brittle our legacy electric system is after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawai\u2018i residents across the state, especially in rural areas, have dealt with multi-day power outages during a busy hurricane season in which strong winds and falling trees have knocked out critical power lines and utility poles. <\/p>\n

Moriwake pointed out that these types of regulations change with presidential administrations. He felt like the back and forth was just a waste of time on an issue of climate change that would have to be faced eventually \u2014 \u201cyou\u2019re gonna pay now or you\u2019re gonna pay later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like fiddling while Rome burns, but just doing the bidding of the fossil fuel industry,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd nevermind the untold damage and harm that you\u2019re gonna be imposing on people across the globe and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kahului Power Plant\u2019s smokestack and surrounding facilities are seen on Oct. 2, 2025. HJI \/ COLLEEN UECHI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[61348,4253,16358,1872,192,2286,16407,12418,31937,60777,363705,363706,363707,60609,75338,20200,5568,1869,79,3479],"class_list":["post-861759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-biden","tag-climate-change","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-epa","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-hawaiian-electric","tag-kahului-power-plant","tag-maalaea-generating-station","tag-maalaea-power-plant","tag-maui-county","tag-npcrosspost","tag-pollution","tag-power","tag-renewable-energy","tag-science","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}