In November we blogged twice about Hawaii’s Public Utility Commission circuit caps making solar a near impossibility for some Maui residents. A 15% ‘distributed generational threshold’ mandated an ‘interconnection study’ for homeowners seeking to go add solar or wind power in areas with a high number of homes or businesses with existing solar or wind power systems. While most of Hawaii remains below the 15% limit, areas of Maui were affected, and the ruling effectively barred new solar permits in the area.

On December 21st, the Hawaii PUC issued an order that will make it much easier for more homes to connect renewable technologies to the grid.

According to Blue Planet Foundation, a key decision of the ‘Rule 14H’ settlement ‘effectively raised the threshold to as much as 50% of the circuit demand and requires that any future supplemental reviews [i.e., interconnection studies] are to be conducted by the utility at no charge to the project and be completed within 20 business days.’

This is great news, ending the worries of those residents in Maui and elsewhere on the islands seeking to go solar.

You can read the other decisions of the PUC 14H settlement here.