In June 2015 the State passed a law setting a goal for the University of Hawai‘i (UH) to produce as much renewable energy as the total energy it consumes; that is, to become net-zero. The great bulk of the University’s energy use occurs on the Mānoa campus, which has the most students and by far the most energy-intensive research labs. The scale of electricity use at Mānoa, which averages about 12 megawatts an hour, is unlikely to be met by on-campus renewable generation. As a result, the University is looking for ways to use land resources in an off-site location to generate renewable energy that can compensate for required energy use on the Mānoa campus.
