Honolulu Reporter

City and County of Honolulu issued the following announcement on Dec. 23.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell today announced the City and County of Honolulu  awarded Covanta Projects LLC the project Design, Build, Operate and  Maintain Combined H-POWER Ash and Automotive Shredder Residue Processing  Facility contract.

“As an island with finite natural resources and land, we understand  the importance of minimizing the impact from the waste we generate,”  Caldwell said.  “Through our investments in the H-POWER plant, including  our cutting edge sludge burning facility, we have led the way in  recovering value from waste, while minimizing the amount we send to our  Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill (WGSL).  This new initiative takes  that commitment one step further and will help to close the loop on how  we sustainably manage the residue that remains from the waste we burn at  H-POWER and provides us meaningful opportunities to recover value from  it.  This takes us one very significant step forward in reducing the  need for an everyday landfill.”

The contract was awarded Dec. 7, 2020, and will run for 11 years at a  cost of $59.83 million.  The first phase is the design and installation  of the facility followed by 10 years of operation and maintenance.  The  city has an option to extend the contract for an additional five years  (subject to the availability of funds and permit acquisition). The  project would recover materials to potentially reuse in construction  material and recover metals for recycling to reduce the annual volume of  waste disposed at the landfill.

“ENV has been working since the beginning of our term to find a  viable option for the ash byproduct of H-POWER as the industry needed  time to develop the appropriate technology,” ENV Director Lori Kahikina  said.  “Honolulu will be one of the first to deploy this type of  technology to “clean” and reuse the ash versus disposing of it at WGSL.   We are proud of the progressiveness of our H-POWER facility.”

“We are excited to partner with our long-term client in Honolulu for  an on-site solution for ash recycling and reuse,” said Christopher  Baker, Covanta vice president and general manager.  “We look forward to  finalizing the terms with the city and helping them get closer to the  goal of a circular economy.”

H-POWER, or Honolulu Program Of Waste Energy Recovery, began  operations May 1990, under an initiative started by the late Mayor Frank  Fasi, and is the foundation of the city’s Integrated Solid Waste  Management Plan. The waste-to-energy facility added a third boiler –  mass burn – in 2012 and a sludge receiving facility three years later to  handle wastewater biosolids. Historically, nearly 90 percent of the  volume of municipal solid waste received has been diverted from WGSL and  converted into renewable electric energy, supplying up to 10% of Oahu’s  electricity needs.

Annually, H-POWER produces approximately 180,000 tons of ash, which currently goes to WGSL.  

Original source can be found here.