Community Solar Farms Meant To Save Money Fail To Gain Traction In Hawaiʻi
Making solar available to middle- and low-income residents was intended to help meet the state’s 2045 all-renewable energy goal. Now one developer says: “We just want out.”
By Stewart Yerton / About 8 hours ago
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The Hawaiʻi Legislature crafted a seemingly elegant solution to a thorny problem when it passed Hawaiʻi’s shared solar program in 2015. The idea was simple: build off-site solar farms — like community gardens, but for power instead of vegetables — that middle- and low-income residents could tap into and get breaks on their electric bills.
But for Stephen Gate’s company Neighborhood Power, the program has proven to be as simple as a Gordian knot.
Neighborhood Power had ample experience operating community solar farms in other states when it opened its Kawela Plantation project on Molokaʻi in June 2023. The company operates four projects in Oregon as part of that state’s program.
Hawaiʻi’s Community-Based Renewable Energy program is meant to help renters and condo dwellers buy power from remote solar farms. But the Public Utilities Commission says the program “has not lived up to its core objective of saving money for ratepayers who don’t control their own rooftops.” (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2022)
Hawaiʻi’s shared solar program has proven far more complex to navigate, according to Gates, Neighborhood Power’s founder and president. While the company has over 800 subscribers for its projects in other states, and more on waiting lists, on Molokaʻi it has just 15. They use only about 30% of the project’s 250-kilowatt capacity.
The rest of the power, Gates said, flows to Hawaiian Electric Co., which sells the electricity for about 50 cents per kilowatt hour.
Gates’ proposed solution: “Let us out, please. We just want out.”
Mark Wong, who oversees HECO’s shared solar program, said the utility is looking into Gates’ request, but that a contract between the companies complicates the situation.
‘It Hasn’t Lived Up To Its Promise’
Neighborhood Power’s experience illustrates the challenges facing Hawaiʻi’s shared solar program. When the Legislature passed the community solar bill, it was also passing an even bolder, separate measure, mandating that all of the electricity sold in Hawaiʻi must be produced with renewable resources by 2045.
Lawmakers recognized that, while rooftop solar panels were increasingly easy and economical for property owners to install, renters and others were left out of the game — and would need to get in somehow if Hawaiʻi were to meet its deadline.
“The community-based renewable energy program seeks to rectify this inequity by dramatically expanding the market for eligible renewable energy resources to include residential and business renters, occupants of residential and commercial buildings with shaded or improperly oriented roofs, and other groups who are unable to access the benefits of onsite clean energy generation,” the community solar bill said.
Gov. David Ige signed Hawaii’s 100% renewables legislation in 2015, flanked by then-Rep. Chris Lee, left, and Sen. Mike Gabbard. A community solar bill signed the same year has failed to gain traction. (Hawaiʻi Governor’s Office)
A decade after then-Gov. David Ige signed the community solar bill into law, advocates of the program say Hawaiʻi’s initiative, known officially as Community-Based Renewable Energy, has failed to gain the traction supporters had hoped for.
Shared solar energy from community farms represents just 0.26% of all of the renewable power produced in the state, Henry Curtis, a long-time environmental activist with Life of the Land who frequently appears before the Public Utilities Commission, wrote in a recent blog post.
“It ended up … like a bridge to nowhere.”
Michael Colon, Ulupono Initiative’s director of energy
Jeff Mikulina, a renewable energy consultant who supported the program as executive director of Blue Planet Foundation, said simply, “It hasn’t lived up to its promise.”
Energy regulators agree.
“Community Based Renewable Energy (CBRE),” the Public Utilities Commission said in a white paper published in December, “is a program that has not lived up to its core objective of saving money for ratepayers who don’t control their own rooftops.”
The overarching issue is that the program has proven cumbersome for the utility, third-party solar farm developers and customers, said Michael Colon, director of energy for the Ulupono Initiative, another community solar proponent.
“It ended up too complicated,” Colon said, “like a bridge to nowhere.”
Some Farms Have Not Met Quotas
The shared solar program is a variation on the system by which third-party solar and wind farm developers build big industrial renewable energy farms. In those cases, the developers enter long-term contracts with HECO and use the contracts to secure loans and pay them off over time.
Under the shared solar program, third-party developers called subscriber organizations also build the solar farms, but the developers are expected to round up subscribers to buy the power, including individuals who sign contracts. The organizations also are in charge of finding new subscribers to replace individual customers who drop out.
The amounts of credits vary, Wong said. But generally, the organizations get credits of, say, 15 cents per kilowatt hour for energy produced and sell the credits to subscribers for less, maybe 10 cents, Wong said.
The result, theoretically, is that the organizations make enough money to cover their investment and operating expenses and customers apply the credits to save money on their electric bills. Savings also vary, Wong said, but residential customers typically can save $5 to $10 per month.
The PUC implemented rules for community solar’s first phase in 2018. At first there was a lot of buzz, Wong said. But the result now is just five facilities in operation with a sixth in the works.
Challenges facing the developers were publicized in September, when the PUC sent HECO a letter requesting information about three shared solar farms: the Kawela Plantation on Molokaʻi, and Tritium3 Renewable Ventures’ Mililani Tech Solar 1 and Altus Power’s Pālailai on Oʻahu.
The issue involved a policy to make sure developers are selling their power to subscribers. The developers face a penalty if 85% of their capacity isn’t going to customers. In that case, the power goes to HECO at a discounted rate.
The PUC’s letter to HECO, dated Sept. 6, asserted that Kawela Plantation, Tritium3 and Altus hadn’t met the threshold. In response, HECO said the utility couldn’t say why the developers hadn’t met the threshold because HECO wasn’t involved in the developers’ day-to-day operations.
“Each subscriber organization is responsible for managing its own subscription levels to meet the program requirements,” HECO wrote.
Altus Power’s head of communications, Jenny Volanakis, denied the PUC and HECO’s assertions, saying in an email to Civil Beat, “we have not had any issues acquiring subscribers.”
Ryan McCauley, founder and chief executive of Tritium3, said the Mililani community solar farm didn’t meet its 85% threshold because it’s been saving capacity for a customer that expects its energy needs to increase.
“If I give that capacity away, I won’t be able to service them,” he said.
At the same time, McCauley agreed the program is too complicated, adding, “We could do a whole lot better if the program was simplified.”
What’s Next For Shared Solar?
Gov. Josh Green signed an executive order to promote renewable energy in January, but it remains to be seen whether it can energize Hawaiʻi’s shared solar initiative. (David Croxford/Civil Beat/2025)
Whether shared solar can play a bigger role in Hawaiʻi’s energy landscape remains to be seen.
In January, Gov. Josh Green issued an executive order calling for “collective actions to accelerate the State’s decarbonization, stabilize and reduce energy costs, lower the State’s carbon footprint, fortify energy security, and gain access to capital for the energy transition.”
Green’s order didn’t specifically mention shared solar farms, but the PUC did numerous times in a chart showing its plans to implement the order.
HECO meanwhile has signed up seven new projects under a second phase of its program, Wong said.
But, the PUC’s white paper noted, “nearly all the developers working on projects have struggled mightily to meet the program’s complex requirements and schedules.”
Civil Beat’s coverage of climate change and the environment is supported by The Healy Foundation, the Marisla Fund of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.
