Solar Matters
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Solar Matters’ mission is to aid, assist, and motivate government agencies, public utilities, and local communities through grassroots efforts and voluntourism to confront the increasing threat of climate change to our health and wellbeing. Environmental justice stands at the core of our mission.
Our initiatives fuse logic with science, connect opportunity to need, and seek solutions that benefit the public and the involved agencies. We promote innovative yet affordable strategies for clean energy, attainable housing and water and food security, while creating jobs that deliver these critical resources locally and eventually, statewide. The spirit of mālama guides our methodologies towards stewardship.
Currently 65% of power generated on Hawaiʻi Island is from burning oil. This is shipped from abroad to refineries in Hawaiʻi and every step in this process increases CO2 in the atmosphere. Hawaii Electric Industries’ oil-fired power plants at Keahole and Waimea combine to generate about 85 MW of electricity. Solar Matters proposes a strategy that positively impacts the environment in which HEI operates.
YOU CAN HELP
The North Kohala Community Development Plan (CDP) calls for safe bike paths. Our project, Ke Ala Lā (the Path of the Sun), also aligns with the State of Hawaiʻi’s bold agenda to achieve 100% renewable energy by the year 2045. Across the Hawaiian Islands, this Aloha+ Challenge has incentivized the Governor’s call to action for the utilities and communities to help meet this goal. Our proposal offers that today, solar is the more appropriate energy source, particularly when augmented by other renewables such as wind, pumped hydro, hydrogen, etc. Also, it will help to sustainably upgrade the utility’s green power portfolio. Solar Matters believes a pedestrian bikeway along the arid Kona and Kohala coasts is ideal for solar power generation. By paving our community bikeway with drive-on solar PV panels, we innovate the fusion of two utilities–transportation and power generation, at a substantial cost saving for governments, utilities, and communities. Our Ke Ala Lā initiative will not only produce enough electricity to power its own lights, it will also provide cost-effective electricity to community households, many of whom have, historically, been less served.
Solar Matters invites the people of Hawaiʻi, themselves, to investigate and invest in securing their own clean energy future, while preserving the island’s natural beauty and resources. Solar Matters will collaborate with the community and fiduciary consultants so that they together build an appropriate Community-Based Renewable Energy (CBRE) program. Our project Ke Ala Lā promotes energy solutions that benefit low to moderate income rate-payers.
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Solar Matters’ Pledge
Living on islands teaches resiliency.
Our island culture and lifestyles are evolving and adapting to a changing environment and economy. Resiliency includes adapting to change. Knowing the mission of Solar Matters will result in changes to the cultural landscape, we will strive to integrate these changes to blend in aesthetically, to utilize only already disturbed historic alignments and roadside rights-of-way. When needed, we will adaptively reuse cultural features with the full intention of commemorating and honoring those who created them.
Living on islands requires being self-sufficient.
This value has eroded over time, and we have become too dependent on offshore imports. We are no longer self-sufficient in meeting food, housing, employment, and energy needs. Solar Matters intends to achieve the highest level of self-sufficiency possible, to view humans and physical environments holistically. We honor the legacy of those who once thrived without being dependent on offshore imports.
Living on islands teaches civility.
Solar Matters’ commitment is to celebrate the diversity of cultures and beliefs, to unite all of us around what we have in common. Solar Matters’ pledge is to be culturally sensitive, competent, to ask permission and to practice the values of aloha ʻāina, lokahi and laulima. It is through civility that a future benefiting the wellbeing and health of earth, its people and the natural environment will be accomplished. Our preferred future, based on community-defined goals, recognizes the connection of the people to the land and to the divinity of nature.