Oil power plant in Hawaii, United States of America. Approximate location 20.8969, -156.4627.
OilHawaiiUnited States of AmericaCO₂ modelled
Kahului is a 34 MW oil power plant in Hawaii, United States of America. It is operated by Maui Electric Co Ltd. Based on reported annual generation of 163 GWh, it can supply roughly 46k homes. It ranks #4174 of 10,938 United States of America power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1956, it is around 70 years old — an older, legacy facility. Its modelled annual emissions are 22,331 t CO₂/yr (Climate TRACE), equivalent to about 5.2k cars driven for a year. In context, oil supplies about 0.7% of United States of America's electricity; the national grid averages 384 gCO₂/kWh (43.0% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id USA0006056.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and/or fuel fields on this page include a source-backed provenance label from GEM, an official registry, Wikidata, OSM, or a cross-source match.
capacity: Wikidata P2109 nameplate capacity; fuel: WRI source-record fuel
At 34 MW, Kahului is well above the median oil plant in United States of America (7 MW). Oil-fired plants burn heavy fuel oil or diesel, usually as peaking or backup capacity on islands and grids without gas pipelines; high fuel cost keeps their utilisation low.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
This facility's annual emissions are roughly equivalent to:
Equivalencies via US EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies; modelled emissions from Climate TRACE.
Annual generation (GWh), WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0).
Operated by Maui Electric Co Ltd.
This oil plant burns oil or diesel to drive turbines or reciprocating engines. It sits in a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen Af) — Northern Hemisphere, latitude 20.9°N — which shapes how much energy it can produce and how its output varies through the year.
Monthly mean temperature
This site has effectively no heating season (tropical/equatorial climate), so winter heat loss is not the driver here. The thermal concern shifts to year-round process heat and humidity/heat-driven corrosion of hot equipment.
Climate normals: WorldClim 2.1 (1970–2000 monthly normals, 10 arc-min, CC BY 4.0); zone: Köppen-Geiger world climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006, 0.5° grid). Degree-days & heat-demand index computed by PowerAtlas — a modelled heat-demand proxy, not a measured site figure.
For a plant’s outdoor hardware — heat-recovery steam generators (HRSG), expansion joints, valves, flanges and their insulation — the local climate sets how fast unprotected steel and coatings degrade. This site sits in an aggressive, high-corrosion environment (estimated ISO 9223 class C5 — Very high), with marine salt corrosion the leading environmental stress.
Higher environmental severity is exactly where protective removable insulation pays back most: a sheltered micro-climate slows corrosion, UV and thermal-cycling damage and extends outdoor hardware service life. This is an indicative site-climate context — not a condition assessment of any specific plant or operator.
Indicative estimate via the ISO 9223:2012 informative method (atmospheric corrosivity from temperature, time-of-wetness and airborne salinity), using WorldClim climate normals, the Köppen-Geiger class and coast distance. Indicative, not a measured corrosion rate.
The #146 largest oil power plant of 902 in United States of America by capacity.
United States of America has 902 oil power plants in this dataset, together about 40,022 MW of capacity.
Coordinates 20.8969, -156.4627 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Kahului is a 34 MW source-record oil power plant in Hawaii, United States of America, commissioned in 1956.
Kahului generates about 163 GWh of electricity per year.
Its output is enough to supply roughly 46,457 homes.
Kahului is operated by Maui Electric Co Ltd.
Kahului has modelled emissions of about 22,331 tonnes of CO₂ per year (Climate TRACE).
