HONOLULU – The City and County of Honolulu celebrated Earth Day and its theme “Our Power, Our Planet” today by releasing the 2025 Annual Sustainability Report and unveiling the Neal S. Blaisdell Center’s new solar canopy and battery storage system.
The Annual Sustainability Report tracks and measures City and community-wide progress toward sustainability, energy, and resilience goals. Presented as an interactive virtual dashboard, the report allows users to explore the data in depth. Both the dashboard and a downloadable PDF are available at resilientoahu.org/sustainabilityreport.
“This report empowers both our City and our communities with the crucial data needed to understand our current progress toward our sustainability goals and to guide our path forward with insight, intelligence, and innovation,” said Mayor Rick Blangiardi. “Across all City departments, we are committed to creating the sustainable, equitable, and resilient future our families and our keiki deserve.”
Highlights from this year’s report include:
- City facilities generated 10.5 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, an 8% increase from the previous year.
- Per capita water consumption decreased by 2.5% compared to the previous year.
- 1,288 trees were planted on City property, contributing a total of over 3,500 community-wide plantings.
- Total electricity generated by renewable sources increased by 5.6%, with the largest share from household solar PV systems, which comprised 19% of total renewable energy generation last year.
- Excluding any increases due to Skyline operations coming online, City facilities have reduced grid electricity use every year since 2018, a decrease of more than 20% as a result of efficiency improvements and renewable energy adoption.
- The number of registered plug-in electric vehicles increased by 22% compared to the previous year, with over 25,000 electric vehicles on the streets.
- Sales of Oʻahu food hubs increased by 5.7% compared to the previous year.
- Disaster preparedness and response training was provided to over 1,300 individuals.
- New datasets are now available for TheBus ridership, commercial and multifamily building benchmarking, FireWise Neighborhoods, active flood insurance policies, and flood-related claim payouts.
The release of the report was announced earlier today at the Blaisdell Center, where the completion of the new solar canopy system was celebrated with remarks and a blessing. This system serves as a powerful example of progress under the report’s “Sustainable City Operations” and “Climate Action” sections, and is a significant achievement of the City-wide Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC), which was completed at the end of 2024 across 82 City facilities. In parallel, the Department of Parks and Recreation also has an ESPC, which upgraded public facilities at 49 parks.
The solar canopy, installed under the management of the Department of Design and Construction (DDC), includes more than 4,500 large-format photovoltaic panels, spanning the entire upper deck of the parking structure — an ideal location for PV, which provides shade for parking and generates nearly 100% of the Blaisdell Center’s daytime energy needs. A battery system was also installed to store clean, renewable energy that can power the Center’s evening events.
“We are committed to making our City operations more energy efficient, and this project reflects that dedication,” said Allyn Lee, program coordinator for the Mechanical/Electrical Division at the DDC, which oversaw the project. “Thanks to strong partnerships with Johnson Controls and Good Current, we were able to leverage their expertise in renewable energy systems and energy conservation technologies. We worked together in planning, coordinating, and implementing the various energy conservation measures at over 80 City buildings and installing over 60 photovoltaic systems to improve how we use electricity in our public facilities.”
The PV system at the Blaisdell Center alone is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 2,794 metric tons annually — the equivalent of 551 homes’ annual electricity use.
“One of many benefits to the City is that it did not have to pay for the upfront costs for these PV systems,” said Aaron Kirk, chief operating officer of Good Current, which provided design, construction and financing for this project. “Through our power purchase agreement, the City only pays for the energy generated at a much lower cost as compared to that from the utility. As of March 2024, we helped the City save over $1 million in electricity costs with more than $15 million estimated to be saved over the next 20 years.”
“Our DDC team is dedicated to including considerations of climate change, sustainability, and resiliency in the design and construction of projects for our client agencies,” said Haku Milles, director of the DDC. “This solar PV project exemplifies how infrastructure and innovation can work hand in hand to support the City’s sustainability goals.”
The entire Blaisdell campus has been undergoing substantial renovations to improve its operations, including dramatically reducing its energy usage and cost.
“We are truly grateful to the team of City agencies and contractors for affording us with responsible and sustainable enhancements to modernize our Blaisdell Center campus to better serve the community,” remarked Dita Holifield, director of the Department of Enterprise Services (DES).
The project’s completion advances the City toward its goals of reducing and ultimately eliminating greenhouse gas emissions per the City’s Climate Action Plan, and increasing shade in public spaces as temperatures rise and during heat waves, per the City’s climate adaptation strategy, Climate Ready O‘ahu.
“Ten months ago this project broke ground and now we’re already witnessing the operational, environmental and community benefits thanks to the hard work by the DDC and DES teams,” said Ben Sullivan, chief resilience officer and executive director of the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency. “This project represents another key step towards achieving the ambitious, yet imperative, goals we track progress on every year in the Annual Sustainability Report.”
To learn simple ways you can contribute to local sustainability efforts, visit resilientoahu.org/getinvolved.
