Oahu offshore wind farm gets blowback

HONOLULU — A company partly backed by the government of France is working to advance an Oahu offshore wind energy project as a federal agency prepares to possibly auction an ocean lease for such use in 2028.

Aukahi Energy LLC, a joint venture involving a subsidiary of French utility giant EDF Group, in recent months has publicly shared its vision to put 22 to 30 floating wind turbines — each taller than a football field — between Oahu and Molokai to supply about 25 percent of the electricity used on Oahu at an estimated cost of over $1.8 billion.

The company, which also involves Oregon-based Progression Energy, wants to locate the 400- to 450-­ megawatt project on the northern end of the Kaiwi Channel, with the closest points to Oahu being about 12 nautical miles from Makapuu Point, Waimanalo and Lanikai. The northwest tip of Molokai also would be about 12 nautical miles away.

Meanwhile, a federal agency that governs leasing federal waters, which begin 3 nautical miles from shore, announced in April that such a lease potentially could be put up for auction in 2028.

However, no area for such a lease has been determined yet, and an auction would be preceded by public meetings.

Hawaii has a goal to generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2045, and offshore wind has long been seen by some state leaders as an option to achieve the goal.

Hawaiian Electric, the regulated power utility serving Oahu, had a long-term renewable energy integration plan approved earlier this year by the state Public Utilities Commission. The plan includes a preference for 400 megawatts of offshore wind power serving Oahu by 2035.

At the end of 2023, renewable energy represented 29.6 percent of Hawaiian Electric power generation on Oahu, while imported oil accounted for 70.4 percent.

Renewable energy has environmental benefits but also often costs less, sometimes a third as much as power from oil in Hawaii, which has the highest electricity rates in the nation.

At a cost

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2021 estimated that offshore wind power for Oahu could cost 5 to 11 cents per kilowatt-hour years from now, compared with 9 to 12 cents for solar projects with battery storage already in operation. Energy costs from solar and wind projects tend to be fixed, whereas the price of oil used for power fluctuates. For September it was 17 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential customers on Oahu, according to Hawaiian Electric.

The Hawaii State Energy Office has long advocated for a balanced portfolio of renewable energy options to limit overreliance on any one resource.

Mark Glick, chief energy officer heading the office, said in a statement that land constraints for renewable energy projects on Oahu dictate that if offshore wind development doesn’t happen, then importing renewable fuels likely would be the alternative.

“All solutions, nonetheless, should provide measurable value to the communities where these projects are located, and be consistent with community values and expectations,” he added.

Aukahi has been soliciting public feedback partly to gauge concerns that could influence whether it continues to push ahead with its plan.

So far, a lot of that feedback has been highly critical.

Kailua resident Gary Weller called Aukahi’s plan “insane” after listening to an Aug. 27 company presentation to the Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board that followed a similar presentation to the Waimanalo Neighborhood Board on June 10.

“The last place in the entire world that anybody wants to see windmills in the ocean would be here,” Weller said during the Hawaii Kai meeting, which he attended via videoconference using a screen background dotted with wind turbines in the ocean.

Weller also attended a July town hall meeting in Waimanalo where the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management described its process for awarding ocean leases for wind energy projects, and he said the reception was overwhelmingly negative.

“That meeting,” Weller said in an interview, “turned into a really angry meeting, with many Hawaiians standing up and saying, ‘How dare you come out here and do this to our ocean? The ocean is part of our culture.’”

At one point someone stood up and asked for a show of hands from those opposed to wind turbines off Oahu, according to Weller, who said, “The entire room stood up and they held their hands up.”

State Rep. Gene Ward (R, Hawaii Kai-Kalama Valley) during the meeting in Hawaii Kai described the Waimanalo town hall reaction as something short of a display with “pitchforks and torches.”

Elizabeth Reilly, a Hawaii Kai Neighborhood Board member, suggested that the board send a letter to Gov. Josh Green asking him to recognize offshore wind farms as not suited for Hawaii.

“This is ill-fitted for the state of Hawaii,” she said during the meeting.

Malia Marquez predicted that if Aukahi’s wind farm plan goes forward, then thousands of canoes and boats would respond to block the project similar to the action in 2019 by mostly Native Hawaiian protesters who physically prevented construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea on Hawaii island to protect a place they consider sacred.

“I will put my life on Kaiwi,” Marquez, who is Hawaiian, said at the meeting.

Some opponents of Aukahi’s plan who spoke at the Hawaii Kai meeting were members of community organizations that have been involved in protecting Oahu’s Kaiwi coast from development, including the Ka Iwi Coalition, Save Sandy Beach Coalition and Livable Hawaii Kai Hui.

“The Ka Iwi Coalition, over 50 years, has fought to keep Kaiwi open and free of development,” Ann Marie Kirk, a member of the group, said at the meeting.

Kirk also said the protective effort extends to the 25-mile-wide Kaiwi Channel separating Oahu and Molokai. “The ocean is our wilderness,” she said. “We support alternative energy but we don’t support this.”

Other issues raised at the Hawaii Kai meeting included concerns about impacts from hurricanes and tidal waves on turbines as well as impacts from turbines and turbine anchor lines on wildlife.

Noe Kalipi, vice president of development for Progression, said during her presentation that Aukahi will have to assess and mitigate potential significant impacts.

“We are in a period of exploration,” she said.

Regarding the visual impact of what the company proposes, Kalipi said the turbines, if built, would be visible from Oahu and Molokai but not to the extent of turbines on land, which exist on Oahu, Hawaii island and Maui.

“Offshore wind has a reduced proximity and visual impact,” she said. “So it’s not right up there in front, but it is very visible.”

Community feedback, Kalipi said, is part of the company’s risk analysis to help determine whether to continue pursuing the project.

Sustained effort

Aukahi’s predecessor, Progression Hawaii Offshore Wind, has been exploring such a project since around 2015, initially under a partnership with former Hawaii Energy Office Administrator Ted Peck.

Progression was then pursuing a 400-megawatt project off Oahu’s South Shore, but later shifted its plan to Windward waters after encountering U.S. Department of Defense objections about a South Shore wind farm interfering with military training, readiness and national defense.

Kalipi said Aukahi has a mitigation agreement with DOD to permit the project in its current proposed site.

Another move the developer made to advance its plan was partnering with EDF in 2018.

Paris-based EDF has about 41 million customers and generated $154 billion in revenue in 2023.

The company, owned by the French government, does not operate any offshore wind farms, but is part of a joint venture with Shell New Energies US LLC that received federal approval in July for a two-phase project off the coast of New Jersey. That planned project, Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, has a capacity of 2,800 megawatts, or enough to power over 1 million homes.

Aukahi also has been collecting wind and ocean data from a buoy in its proposed project site over the past 18 months, and in October paid $5.2 million for 9 acres of land in Kaneohe next to a Hawaiian Electric substation for an envisioned connection of wind farm cables to Oahu’s grid.

Still, Aukahi does not have an ocean lease from the federal government or any supply arrangement with Hawaiian Electric.

Those two things are subject to competitive bids, and at least two other companies have previously expressed interest in wind farm development off Oahu: Alpha Wind Energy, based in Denmark, and Equinor ASA, based in Norway.

Hawaiian Electric anticipates soliciting proposals in mid-2025 for renewable energy projects that have long lead times and collectively could provide 2.2 gigawatt-­hours of power for Oahu before 2040.

“Our (renewable energy integration) plans are meant to be flexible and to allow competitive bidding and community engagement to help us to determine the best resources overall for the grid,” Hawaiian Electric spokesperson Darren Pai said in a statement. “We know there are strong feelings about offshore wind and that’s one of the reasons why the plan also evaluated the possibility that it may never be developed, which may result in our pursuing alternatives, potentially at higher cost.”

Federal decisions

BOEM, part of the Department of the Interior, is in charge of leasing federal waters for offshore wind energy production. Its announcement in April that such a lease off Oahu may be auctioned in 2028 aims to provide advance notice to stakeholders, including the public, and to facilitate planning.

“BOEM maintains the discretion to modify this plan during the next five years; decisions regarding these potential lease sales — including whether to hold a lease sale at all — have not yet been made,” the agency said in its announcement.

As part of BOEM’s process, the agency would identify an area considered for leasing and solicit public comment before making a final area selection.

If an auction is held, the winning bidder would then be subject to having a construction and operations plan approved by BOEM. The agency also typically does an environmental assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act.

For the Atlantic Shores project, the developer said, final approval followed more than five years of stakeholder engagement and more than 40 environmental studies.

In Hawaii, Kalipi said during the June presentation to the Waimanalo Neighborhood Board that Aukahi has asked BOEM to hold an ocean site lease auction in 2026 instead of 2028 to accommodate many years needed for reviews, permitting and construction so that operations can begin by 2035.