Ormat to host Puna Geothermal Venture community meeting in Pāhoa
Ormat’s 4 p.m. meeting in Pāhoa will put PGV’s safety, emissions and Repower Project under scrutiny after the 2018 eruption.
Ormat’s quarterly community meeting will give Puna residents another chance to press Puna Geothermal Venture on whether the plant is becoming safer, cleaner and more transparent as it moves through a major overhaul. The stakes are higher than a routine update: PGV still sits at the center of Hawaii Island’s power conversation, and neighbors are likely to want concrete answers on monitoring, emergency response, traffic tied to site work and how the company plans to operate without repeating the mistrust that followed earlier disputes.
The meeting is set for 4 p.m. at the Pāhoa Neighborhood Facility on Kauhale Street. Ormat says the session is meant to be open and transparent, with a question-and-answer period built in so residents, stakeholders and other community members can speak directly with PGV leadership and technical staff. The company also says it will take questions in advance through the PGV public-meetings page or by calling its toll-free response line at (808) 369-9094, and it plans to record the gathering and post it later. The public-meetings page shows this is part of an ongoing series, with prior meetings listed for Aug. 26, 2025, June 24, 2025 and Jan. 23, 2024.
For Puna District, the room is likely to fill with questions shaped by the plant’s history. PGV has operated since 1993, but the 2018 lower Puna eruption changed the context around it dramatically. PGV says the eruption began in early May, produced a billion cubic yards of lava, inundated about 700 homes and left the facility surrounded by lava. That experience still colors every discussion of safety, emergency planning and whether industrial activity can coexist with nearby neighborhoods in a district shaped by volcanic risk.
The Repower Project is the other major issue hanging over the meeting. State geothermal reporting says PGV has been making infrastructure and site improvements to prepare for replacing its existing energy converters with more efficient units, while the amended and restated power purchase agreement remains under review at the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement was published on May 8, 2023, and the County of Hawaii Planning Department accepted the Final EIS on Jan. 22, 2024. The approved Repower Project is intended to expand PGV’s contracted capacity from 38 megawatts to 46 megawatts by replacing 12 operating power-generating units with up to four energy converters on the existing site footprint. State filings also describe a possible Phase 2 increase to 60 megawatts, though that remains a separate proposal. One new injection well, KS-21, has been drilled and tested, and a permit notice projected a net decrease of 6.36 tons per year of VOC emissions as nominal output rises from 41 megawatts to 46 megawatts.
Ormat said in February 2024 that the Public Utilities Commission approved two final amendments to the power purchase agreement between PGV and Hawaiian Electric, with the agreement expected to govern power generation through 2052. With geothermal output still representing a substantial share of electricity delivered to the HELCO grid, the meeting will matter most if it produces verifiable commitments on safety, emissions, monitoring and the plant’s long-term role on Hawaii Island.
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