Power Plants in Hawaii

Hawaii's power-plant fleet holds 3.7 gigawatts of nameplate capacity — what the equipment could produce running flat out. This is not generation: a megawatt of solar and a megawatt of nuclear appear the same here and produce very different amounts of electricity over a year. That capacity ranks the state 46th among the 51 regions tracked, counting down from the largest fleet. The state operates 73 plants out of 76 in service as of May 2026.

Other fuels account for 63.2% of capacity at 2,333 megawatts, followed by solar at 15.7%, battery storage at 13.3%, wind at 6.9%, and hydro at 0.9%. The five largest plants are Kahe at 610 megawatts, Waiau at 375 megawatts, Kalaeloa Cogen Plant at 299 megawatts, Maalaea at 230 megawatts, and Kapolei Energy Storage at 185 megawatts. Kahe and Waiau are fueled by other sources, as is Kalaeloa Cogen Plant; Maalaea also burns other fuels; Kapolei Energy Storage runs on batteries.

The fleet spans nearly a century. Waiau Hydro first came online in December 1928, while the newest addition, BRE - Ritz Carlton Kapalua, came online in December 2025. The 76 plants tracked include everything down to sub-megawatt backup generators, so plant count alone does not indicate fleet size — capacity is the meaningful measure.