The state Public Utilities Commission halted the construction of 6.75 megawatts of solar power on Hawaii island by suspending the application of a needed transmission line on Friday.

The 6.75-megawatt solar farm is made up of 27 separate solar projects that participated in a discontinued program called Feed-in-Tariff, or FIT — 26 of the projects are owned by Calwaii Hawaii Inc. FIT, put in place in 2008 to incentivize renewable energy on the island, credits projects sized between 20 kilowatts and 500 kilowatts approximately 23.8 cents a kilowatt-hour, according to Hawaiian Electric Co.’s website. Each of the projects has the capability to produce 250 kilowatts.

Hawaii Electric Light Co. submitted a request to build an overhead transmission line for the 27 projects, which were originally slated to be completed this year.

PUC Chairman Randy Iwase said Tuesday that HELCO’s transmission line application was suspended to halt the projects due to concerns voiced by residents and the state Consumer Advocate about the price of the projects.

“Nobody is going to move on the FIT project,” Iwase said. “We have suspended any action on the application pending a review or an investigation or resolution of the complaint filed by the Bosteds.”

On Aug. 29, Peter and Ann Bosted, residents of Ocean View, filed a complaint asking the PUC to revoke the FIT permits on Hawaii island because, they claim, the projects misuse zoning laws and circumvent the commission’s competitive bidding process.

“We respectfully urge the (PUC) to conclude that the goals of 2008 Energy Agreement are now out of date, and that these FIT projects should be extinguished,” the Bosteds said in the complaint. “We also respectfully request that the (PUC) revoke the FIT permits as they were issued under false pretenses and are of no public benefit at this time.”

The Bosteds also said they were concerned with Calwaii Hawaii owning the majority of the projects — approximately 6.5 megawatts.

“It appears the PUC wanted geographical and ownership diversity for the FIT program by promoting small installations on the Big Island,” the Bosteds said in the filing. “Instead, in Ocean View, technically, we now have 26 FIT projects, aggregated to a utility scale project of 6.5 megawatts seemingly under the same parent company. This exceeds the noncompetitive bid 5 megawatt limit and should, by the PUC orders, require a power purchase contract of that size to be competitively bid.”

The largest capacity of a project that can be accepted into the FIT program is 5 megawatts.

In a June 29 filing with the PUC, former Consumer Advocate Jeff Ono said he was concerned with the competitive bidding of the FIT projects in Ocean View.

“It is apparent that the 26 solar project owners effectively ‘gamed’ the FIT process in order to avoid going through the more rigorous competitive bidding framework,” Ono said.

Ono said in the filing he also was concerned with the delay in completion of the FIT projects, which were initiated in 2008 and are not finished. He added that the original compensation rates of the projects are no longer in the public interest.

“The delay in the completion raises questions about whether there is a commitment to finalize the projects, and whether these projects may have originally been an attempt to take advantage of market conditions,” Ono said.

Each of the FIT projects would have been credited 23.8 cents a kilowatt-hour, which is roughly 10 cents higher than four solar farms the PUC allowed to be waived from the competitive bidding process in 2014. The four projects the PUC accepted were selling energy to HECO for approximately 14 cents a kilowatt-hour for the duration of their 22-year life span.

Iwase said the FIT program is obsolete because the cost is too high.

He said the PUC will order HELCO to respond to information requests as to whether there was an attempt to circumvent competitive bidding laws.