Faculty author temporarily withdraws UHERO report on Hawaiʻi's electricity future
News Release from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Jul 7, 2026
The faculty author of the “Hawaiʻi's Electricity Future: Three Findings on Solar Reform, Enhanced Geothermal, and the JERA LNG Proposal” report has informed UHERO that he is temporarily withdrawing the report. He intends to correct identified errors, complete a comprehensive review, seek additional input and feedback from stakeholders and republish a revised edition.
The findings and conclusions in any UHERO publication are those of its authors, not of UHERO or the University of Hawaiʻi. UHERO does not take positions on policy questions. UHERO’s role is to provide the evidence and analysis that decision-makers and the public need, not to advocate for particular outcomes.
UHERO reports regularly address issues of statewide importance, and it is essential that they meet the highest standards of accuracy and transparency. Public confidence depends on those standards being consistently upheld. In light of this matter, UHERO is reviewing its publication standards to ensure they remain clear and are applied consistently.
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YOU CAN STILL READ: Complete Debunk: UHERO Fakes Findings to Benefit Solar Lobby “It took me about one hour to debunk this UHERO report. It just wasn't that hard.”
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“That study was baloney” -- Governor Green
“That study, I have to say, was baloney,” Governor Green said of the report. “The premise of that study, that we’re suddenly going to magically find over 30,000 acres of land, we’re suddenly going to have all the resources that you want to invest in, huge tax break for solar, that’s exactly the opposite of reality. Also, unfortunately, one of the individuals on that study, and this is going to come out very broadly, I believe, this week, was completely compromised. They run a think tank that is all in on one issue, and that is fully renewable solar. Again, I love solar, but you can't do it solo, and that’s why we have some of the highest rates of energy in the country, because we’ve not diversified our energy portfolio.” -- Gov Green, July 6, 2026 KHON
EDITOR’s NOTE: Green is talking about Mathias Fripp a former UH professor who now works for ‘Energy Innovation Policy & Technology, LLC’ a solar/wind thinktank: Matthias Fripp • Energy Innovation
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Frippery: Google Co-Founder Funds Push to make Hawaii 100% Solar
CB: … Amid Gov. Josh Green’s push to bring liquefied natural gas to Hawaiʻi, one critic has risen to the forefront: a policy research leader who has repeatedly attacked Green’s arguments that LNG belongs in the state’s energy future.
On the surface, Matthias Fripp appears to have no agenda. His employer, Energy Innovation Policy & Solutions LLC, describes itself as a “non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank” providing “customized research and policy analysis to decision-makers to support policy design that enhances security and access to affordable energy.”
What Fripp didn’t disclose — in legislative testimony blasting a Hawai‘i State Energy Office report or in a paper published by the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization extolling the benefits of solar energy that was withdrawn Tuesday by its main author — are deep ties between his employer and the Climate Imperative Foundation, a powerful, well-funded environmental NGO that has given tens of millions of dollars to groups leading the fight against Green’s LNG proposal….
The think tank Fripp works for, Energy Innovation, is a private LLC whose finances are largely private. But public records show it is closely intertwined with the Climate Imperative Foundation, which, according to its website, supports “rapid scaling of renewable energy” and “stopping the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure,” among other initiatives.
For example, the Climate Imperative Foundation’s most recent available tax return shows the foundation’s president through December of 2024, Hal Harvey, was also the think tank’s sole owner. The foundation’s highest-paid employees were think tank staff, earning salaries as high as $405,000 annually in the case of then-vice president Sonia Aggarwal.
In total, the foundation paid the think tank $23.3 million in 2024 for management services, including finance, grants administration, research and strategic communications….
The foundation reported $271.7 million in revenue in 2024, including $268.1 million in grants, making it one of the nation’s largest environmental nonprofits. By contrast, the Sierra Club that year reported revenue of $169 million and Earthjustice $139.6 million, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.
Where Climate Imperative’s money came from isn’t clear from the return, which does not disclose the identities of some major donors as allowed under IRS rules. However, considerable sums come from Silicon Valley. For instance, Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s family foundation alone poured just under $49 million into the foundation in 2024, the Brin foundation’s tax return says.
(TRANSLATION: Hawaii is being exploited as a lab experiment to see if California pipe-dreams are real.)
Also in 2024, the return shows, the Climate Imperative Foundation donated $23.1 million to the Sierra Club and $2.7 million to Earthjustice, both of which have amplified Fripp’s work in press releases and interviews opposing Green’s LNG proposal. …
a January 2025 report by the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office that found LNG merited analysis as a bridge fuel to replace oil while the state transitions to 100% renewables by 2045.
In testimony before the Hawaiʻi House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee, Fripp said he had found significant errors in that report’s modeling that “artificially inflate the benefit of LNG by at least $1.2 billion.”
Earthjustice quickly issued a press release with the heading: “Billion-Dollar Math Error Blows Up Green Administration’s Fossil Gas Import Plan.”
Since then, the energy office has admitted there were errors in the data it used in the report but says they didn’t amount to $1.2 billion and didn’t materially affect the overall finding that LNG merited a closer look.
Before his testimony, Fripp introduced himself as director of global policy research for Energy Innovation. He didn’t mention the think tank’s connections to the Climate Imperative Foundation.
Rep. Nicole Lowen is chair of the Energy and Environmental Protection Committee and presided over the informational briefing where Fripp disclosed his findings. Contacted by Civil Beat, Lowen declined to say whether she was aware of the ties between Fripp’s think tank and the environmental group when he testified, whether the information would have been relevant to how the committee weighed his testimony and whether the public should know about the ties.
“The questions you sent in this email seem very loaded and intended to discredit Dr. Fripp,” Lowen wrote back in an email reply. “When you have genuine questions asked in good faith I would be happy to answer them.” …
(TRANSLATION: Global warming is my religion. I don’t care what our priests do.)
On Tuesday, the report’s main author, UH economist Michael Roberts, took the unusual step of withdrawing the paper pending further review after Hawaiian Electric Co. found data errors in the report.
Although listed only as a contributor, Fripp played a significant role in the report, Roberts said in an email.
“Matthias didn’t do any of the new modeling work or writing, but we corresponded throughout and generally used him as a sounding board, and he provided ample feedback on earlier drafts,” Roberts said. “We offered to make him a coauthor but were unable to do so due to restrictions in his current role at Energy Innovation.”
Fripp’s role was significant enough that the University of Hawaiʻi media team had listed him as a co-author with Roberts and doctoral student Ethan Hartley in an earlier online announcement about the paper. That announcement has been taken down from UH’s website but is still available through an Internet archive.
After announcing the “Hawaii’s Electricity Future” report would be withdrawn, Roberts acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday that the report contained several errors, including data produced by an AI hallucination. Roberts, however, defended Fripp’s contributions to the report and said errors in the report had nothing to do with Fripp.
“Matthias — formerly a tenured professor of electrical engineering at UH Mānoa and a UHERO Fellow — is among the sharpest, most scrupulous scholars I have worked with,” Roberts said. “The errors here are mine. Attacks on him are attacks on the wrong person, and I ask that they stop.” …
(TRANSLATION: I admit UH ‘climate science’ is full of academic fraudsters. And I will sacrifice myself to save them from themselves.)
Read … Influential Energy Researcher Quietly Backed By Big Money Climate Group - Honolulu Civil Beat
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UHERO temporarily withdraws energy report, citing errors
SA: …In an emailed statement Tuesday, Green told the Star-Advertiser that he appreciated UHERO for recognizing “the flaws and bias that the compromised ‘study’ demonstrated.”
“The faulty study and analysis, deeply compromised by vested interests, threatens to set back our collective opportunity to build a sane bridge to a fully renewable future,” Green said. “The cost of energy and Hawaii’s energy future is a serious issue with extraordinary complexity and it deserves a sober, thoughtful and honest assessment.”
Neither Roberts nor Hartley could be reached for comment by deadline.
The original report found solar’s “soft costs,” such as procurement and permitting, are the driver behind it being more expensive in Hawaii than on the mainland — just one of many findings that Hawaiian Electric Co. spokesperson Jim Kelly rejected in a Honolulu Star-Advertiser story last week.
Kelly said the “soft costs” claim ignored the premium that the state faces on the cost and availability of labor, and the cost of shipping steel, concrete and heavy equipment. He also said the report “closely scrutinizes the cost of building power plants but gives the benefit of the doubt to solar and storage pricing and largely ignores the impracticality of covering 31,000 acres on Oahu — about 60% of developable land — with solar panels and batteries.”
The math included in the withdrawn report also relied on incorrect numbers to calculate utility-scale solar’s cost in cents per kilowatt-hour, Kelly said, with the actual numbers being about double what was used in the report’s calculations.
HECO spokesperson Darren Pai told the Star-Advertiser that the company raised the math concern with UHERO, which added a correction before ultimately removing the report from its website.
“We appreciate that they looked at the concerns that we and others raised,” Pai said.
UHERO Executive Director Carl Bonham confirmed to the Star-Advertiser on Tuesday that HECO raised the mathematical error with Roberts.
Bonham said it was Roberts’ decision to withdraw the report to address the corrections and criticisms.
It’s the first published report that UHERO has withdrawn to his knowledge, Bonham said, adding that the organization has issued corrections before….
read … UHERO temporarily withdraws energy report, citing errors | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
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Bogus Solar Pricing Used in Report
CB: … Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. ... pointed out that the report used outdated 2018 data on the price of electricity produced by industrial solar farms. Gov. Josh Green ... called the report “baloney.”…
Last week, Roberts published a correction to the “Hawaii’s Electricity Future” study, thanking HECO for pointing out the error in the solar pricing data but said at the time that the error didn’t affect the report’s overall fundings….
Jim Kelly, HECO’s vice president of government and community relations and corporate communications, applauded the (withdrawal). “We appreciate them taking a look at this and considering the questions we and others raised,” Kelly said. ...
read … UH Expert Withdraws Paper Calling For More Solar Instead Of Power Plants - Honolulu Civil Beat