It's been two years since Hawaiʻi's last coal plant shut down in Kapolei, marking the end of a 30-year relationship with coal.
The AES facility officially closed down, but the site has been far from quiet. AES has been busy clearing the land to make way for something new.
"We were just there a couple of days ago," said Sandra Larsen, the president of AES Hawaiʻi. "All of the above-ground structures have been removed. All of the materials and debris are being cleared offsite, and they're going to be transported off-island and recycled."
AES expects to return the site to its original state by spring 2025. But that land may not lie fallow for long — the 28.5-acre parcel could one day be home to a new energy project. Larsen said a new battery storage project is at the top of the list of possibilities.
"So the team has really been looking at developing and refining those plans, and seeing if that's something that could work at the site," she said.
Since the coal plant shut down in 2022, lots of new utility-scale energy projects have cropped up across the islands, including a few operated by AES.
On Friday, the company held a formal blessing for its Kūihelani Solar-plus-Storage project on Maui, the largest solar farm in the state so far. AES broke ground on that project shortly before the coal plant closed.
"It's just really an honor to be able to do this for the Maui community and residents of Maui," Larsen said about the project, which will power approximately 27,000 homes.
The coal plant is a big part of AES’ history, but Larsen said the company's future is all about renewables. She called the closing of the coal plant "the final piece" in the company's transition to a fully renewable resource portfolio.
