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.”

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 compa