Hawaii residents pay the highest rates for electricity in the United States. In 2012, Hawaiian residents paid more than 34 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is more than three times higher than the average in the rest of the United States. When compared with states such as Wyoming who average around 7 cents per kilowatt-hour and noticing the disconnect between Hawaii and the rest of the country, it’s easy to see why Hawaii is in desperate need of a local, consistent, cheap energy source.
Each of Hawaii’s six main islands has its own electrical grid. The chart below illustrates the electrical use for each island/grid with the total use in GWh for the entire state of Hawaii. Note that twenty-eight percent of the kWh of electricity use are residential, while seventy-eight percent of the kWh of electricity use are commercial:

To meet the growing needs of the consumers, Hawaii has invested heavily on growing the production of renewable energy sources. Although Hawaii’s electricity production and costs are still heavily reliant on oil, energy efficiency and renewable energy have been increasing across the state. In fact in 2012, Hawaii saw a fifteen percent hike in renewable energy generation from 11.9% to 13.7%. Twenty percent of all renewable energy generated statewide comes from Hawaii’s single geothermal power plant, the Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV). In 2012, the PGV produced 266 GWh of electricity which represented twenty-three percent of Hawaii’s (the island, not the state) total consumable electricity. The chart below illustrates how energy from the PGV is broken down by kilowatt-hour:

The data above suggests that by utilizing the probable geothermal reserves in Hawaii and Maui, the cost of electricity per kilowatt-hour would dramatically decrease bringing Hawaii more in line with the rest of America. Using the following formulas, we can