A community hall full of Ocean View residents were left without answers Friday evening as the developers of a massive commercial solar project failed to show for the meeting.
Two representatives for SPI Solar had reserved and paid for the hall, but one failed to make a flight and the other was deterred by flash flooding, said resident Ann Bosted, who has been coordinating with developers to try to get answers surrounding the prickly plan for 30,000 panels on 26 lots scattered in and around the Hawaiian Ocean View Ranchos subdivision. The photovoltaic arrays would take up a combined 52 acres.
“I built my house to live in the rest of my life,” said Christine Gallagher, a Ranchos resident since 1979. “Solar panels will be on three sides of my property.”
The 2-acre lots would produce 250 kilowatts each, making them eligible for the Tier 2 Feed-In Tariff program. Under that initiative, SPI can sell the electricity to Hawaiian Electric Light Co. at a rate of 23.8 cents per kilowatt hour over a 20-year period.
The utility company is seeking to build a 69 killovolt transmission line and a $1.75 million substation to serve the arrays, paid for by the developer. The solar farms and transmission system are expected to be completed next year.
Residents have numerous concerns about the project, including worries about fire danger and impacts to views and property values. They also argue the Feed-In Tariff program was meant to foster smaller projects, not a 6.75 megawatt commercial project broken up into small generation units. And the state law allowing solar power generation projects on agricultural land fails to properly protect subdivisions such as Hawaiian Ocean View Ranchos that are built on ag land, many residents have argued.
Ranchos homeowner Larry Shelton said solar farms can create fire hazards, making them incompatible with homes.
“They’re not totally safe,” said Shelton, a retired battalion chief from the Phoenix Fire Department. “The big installations in California, New Mexico and Arizona have had fires, but they’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
Shelton put his concerns in a recent letter to the Hawaii County Fire Department and Mayor Billy Kenoi.
“We have the Ka‘u winds as everyone knows,” Shelton said. “If you get something going down there, you better hope you’re not in its path.”
Residents are fighting the project on many fronts, calling on the Public Utilities Commission and Gov. David Ige to intervene. They want the project scrapped or moved. If it stays, they want fire hydrants installed and for transmission lines to be buried. They’ve also altered the Ka‘u Community Development Plan with a provision that would require solar farms to seek a special use permit in the future. The Hawaiian Ranchos Road Maintenance Corp. has also told the developer it will not allow access over the subdivision’s private roads to eight lots outside the Ranchos boundary.
“I told them, build your own roads,” said Mats Fogelvik, the road corporation’s president.
Because renewable energy projects are allowed outright on agricultural lands, many owners of Ranchos’ 270 homes feel they’ve been left out of the process.
“If this goes ahead,” said Don Nitsche, “it means big business has the rights over individuals.”
