"The company is seeking to add up to 50 megawatts (MW) of geothermal energy from geothermal resource developers at prices not tied to the cost of oil to help lower electricity costs for customers. The added power must also blend operationally with other resources, including renewable energy from wind, solar, biomass and hydro. "Moving forward on geothermal is important to Hawaii Island because we want to increase our use of renewable energy and bring down costs to our customers,"

"While traditional geothermal can be cheaper than coal power, enhanced geothermal systems are generally more expensive than traditional ones. But being able to create multiple geothermal zones from one well brings down the overall cost of enhanced geothermal by 50 percent, Petty said."

"The U.S. Department of Energy found that heat pumps can save a typical home hundreds of dollars in energy costs each year, with the system typically paying for itself in 8 to 12 years. Tax credits and other incentives can reduce the payback period to 5 years or less.10                                                  "

"Geothermal energy is the heat from the Earth. It's clean and sustainable. Resources of geothermal energy range from the shallow ground to hot water and hot rock found a few miles beneath the Earth's surface, and down even deeper to the extremely high temperatures of molten rock called magma."