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Image above: Illustration of Aia Koa Pono Kau Energy Farm. From (http://www.allhawaiinews.com/2011/01/hawaii-farm-to-fuel-project-military-to.html).
Hawaiian Electric Co. will use locally grown and processed biofuel from Aina Koa Pono LLC to generate power.
The Honolulu-based utility said today in a statement that it will initially use the fuel at its 80-megawatt Keahole Power Plant on the island of Hawaii, and may also use it at other facilities there and on Oahu and Maui.
Aina will spend $320 million to develop a farm for energy crops and a processing facility to turn the plants into biofuel, Char Chang, a company spokesman, said today in an e-mail. The 13,000-acre farm will grow mainly sweet sorghum and eucalyptus, and the company will also use Christmas berry and guinea grass, Chang said.
Aina has raised $4 million in seed money to date and anticipates receiving $5 million “in coming weeks,” Chang said. The company is in talks with investment banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase & Co., he said.
Aina has obtained exclusive rights in Hawaii from Tekgar LLC and Bionics Fuel Technologies AG for a technology called “microwave depolymerization” that uses heat and pressure to convert organic material into synthetic diesel, Chang said.
Hawaiian Electric said the contract would add $1.55 to $1.86 per month to the bill of typical residential customers who use between 500 kilowatt-hours and 600 kilowatt-hours of power each month.
Terms of the utility’s fixed-price, 20-year contract with Aina were not disclosed. Aina will provide 14 million gallons of biofuel per year beginning in 2014, increasing to 16 million gallons per year in 2015, Hawaiian Electric said.
Construction on the processing facility is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2012, Aina said in a statement.
SUBHEAD: Hawaii Electric is a possible buyout target and conversion to private company.
By staff on 8 January 2011 in The Maui News - (http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/544797/HEI-a-possible-buyout-target.html)
One of the leaders of a new Hawaii company said he wants to buy Hawaiian Electric Industries and convert the parent of the state's largest electricity generator into a private company.
Kuokoa Inc. CEO Roald Marth said that the four-month-old firm wants to buy HEI, the holding company for Hawaiian Electric Co., Maui Electric Co. and Hawaii Electric and Light Co. on the Big Island.
It also owns American Savings Bank, which Marth said he would sell.
''We want to buy it all,'' Marth said. ''We want it to be a friendly transition to a private company.''
He estimated that buying all the stock of HEI, which currently has a market value of $2.25 billion, could cost as much as $3 billion.
Hawaiian Electric spokeswoman Shelee Kimura said Friday that the company was contacted by Marth for the first time Thursday, and there have been no discussions.
Marth acknowledged that he doesn't have the money to pull off the deal but would have to persuade investors to back the venture.
Kuokoa's leaders include President Ted Peck, who recently resigned as the state's energy administrator and Chairman Richard Ha, owner of Hamakua Springs Country Farms on the Big Island.
Marth, a motivation speaker and venture capitalist, said Kuokoa, which is privately held, has 25 investors.
Kuokoa's leaders say they want to quicken the pace of HEI's move away from burning fossil fuels.
''Hawaiian Electric wants to get off of fossil fuels, but they just can't,'' Marth said. ''They're obligated to paying out dividends (to investors). A private company doesn't have to pay a dividend, and we won't. We will use that money to transition to (clean energy).''
The state and Hawaiian Electric Industries signed the Clean Energy Initiative in 2008, mandating the state achieve 40 percent renewable energy and 30 percent energy efficiency by 2030.
Kuokoa has a comprehensive plan to bring Hawaii to 100 percent renewable energy in 10 years, at a cost of $35 billion, Marth said.
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