The executive director of the state’s dormant $150 million green energy loan program said she’s aiming to have an option available in December for residents to pay for solar water heaters and photovoltaic systems through their electricity bills.

Gwen Yamamoto Lau, executive director of the Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority (HGIA), said she intends to submit plans for an on-bill financing option by the end of August to the state Public Utilities Commission. Through on-bill financing, residents who lease a solar system using money from the loan program that Lau’s agency manages will be able to pay back the loan when paying their electricity bills. The loan payment would appear as a separate line item on the bill.

“As soon as we get PUC approval, we want to start originating some loans,” Lau said at an HGIA board meeting Monday when discussing updates to the program known as Green Energy Market Securitization, or GEMS.

If the PUC does not move to suspend the plans within 15 business days after HGIA’s filing, Lau said by mid-September borrowers will be able to begin applying for loans that would be eligible for on-bill payments. Lau said by December the loans will begin showing up on participants’ electricity bills.

By then GEMS will have passed the first anniversary of when it was expected to have loaned out all of the $150 million it raised through a bond sale in 2014. The program failed to meet its goal of lending all the money by the end of November 2016.

To date GEMS has issued roughly 3 percent of the funds. Currently, GEMS has committed to fund $73.4 million worth of projects, according to Lau. This includes a $46.4 million, interest-free loan to improve energy efficiency at Department of Education schools.

Since it began, the program has spent $2.9 million of electrical utility ratepayer money to pay for administrative costs. Interest payments during the 15-year life of the bonds will total $33 million. The GEMS program, and its 2.99 percent interest on the $150 million in bonds, is paid for by ratepayers through a line item on electrical bills.

HGIA board member Jeff Mikulina said Lau’s August submission of the on-bill option ends a “saga” of trying to get on-bill financing to work. Mikulina is also executive director of a clean-energy organization called Blue Planet Foundation.

“It’s exciting,” Mikulina said. “I know this has been a saga since 2011. It’s great to see an actual program, an on-bill program.” The state Legislature passed a bill in 2011 that asked the PUC to study whether an on-bill program would be worthwhile.

Lau said the payment could be beneficial for renters whose landlords participate. Landlords who buy a solar system for their property will benefit from the 35 percent state tax credit offered for photovoltaic systems, and renters would pay off the solar system loan through their electricity bills. Lau said she is working to design the program so that renters involved will see a 10 percent discount on their electricity bills compared with what they were paying before their landlord purchased the system.

“We are very hopeful, with the on-bill (option), to really bring the savings … especially to the demographics the program wants to benefit, the lower-income,” she said.

Renters and low-income individuals were two of the target groups listed by the PUC when the agency approved the GEMS program.

Lau said HGIA has been talking to investors who are interested in the on-bill program and has been working with Hawaii Energy, a ratepayer-funded energy efficiency program, to find borrowers.

“There is interest,” she said.