What HRS 196-7 actually says
Under HRS Section 196-7 no person shall be prevented by any covenant, declaration, bylaws, restriction, deed, lease, term, provision, condition, codicil, contract or similar binding agreement from installing a solar energy device on any single-family residential dwelling or townhouse that the person owns.
A private entity for these purposes means any association of homeowners, community association, condominium association, cooperative or other non-governmental entity with covenants, bylaws and administrative provisions the homeowner must comply with. That is a deliberately wide definition.
Every private entity was required to adopt rules providing for the placement of solar energy devices by December 31, 2006, and to revise those rules as necessary by July 1, 2011. So an association without such rules is not in a stronger position, it is in a non-compliant one.
A solar energy device includes a photovoltaic cell application applicable to a single-family residential dwelling or townhouse, though it expressly does not include skylights or windows.
The two numbers worth memorising
The rules an association adopts must facilitate the placement of solar energy devices, and must not impose conditions or restrictions that render the device more than twenty-five per cent less efficient.
The same provision caps cost interference: the rules must not increase the cost of installation, maintenance and removal of the device by more than fifteen per cent.
Those two figures convert a subjective argument into a measurable one. If an association asks you to move an array to a less favourable roof plane, the question stops being about taste and becomes a question about whether the relocation crosses the twenty-five per cent efficiency line.
That means the useful response to a relocation request is a production model of both placements, expressed as a percentage difference. Ask your installer to produce it in writing before you agree to anything, because without a number the conversation has no anchor.
The fee prohibition
No private entity shall assess or charge any homeowner any fees for the placement of any solar energy device. That is a flat prohibition rather than a reasonableness standard.
It is worth knowing because application, review and architectural committee fees are routine for other exterior changes, and an association may apply its standard process without noticing that solar is carved out.
If a fee appears, the productive step is usually to point at the statute rather than to dispute the amount. Most associations are administering a general process rather than resisting solar specifically.
Keep the paperwork. A written record of the submission, the response and any fee raised is what makes the position straightforward if the matter needs escalating, and it costs nothing to file at the time.
Costing it out at Hawaii electricity prices
The 30 percent federal Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase in Mililani receives no federal tax credit. Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements.
The state RETITC under HRS Section 235-12.5 remains at 35 percent of actual cost capped at $5,000 per system, where a residential system is 5 kW of total output capacity, so a larger installation may comprise more than one system.
New projects join Smart Renewable Energy on the Export or Non-Export track, since Customer Grid-Supply, Customer Grid-Supply Plus, Smart Export, Customer Self-Supply and the Standard Interconnection Agreement are all closed to new customers.
Then add the Oahu 2025 residential average of 40.54 cents per kWh. And if your association has asked for a relocation, add the production difference between the two placements, because that number belongs in the arithmetic as much as any incentive does.