A new state program in Hawaii will look to make buying equipment to produce renewable energy more accessible.

Gov. David Ige announced the Green Energy Money $aver On-Bill program Monday to make financing “green energy” installations easier for small businesses and nonprofit organizations, homeowners and renters.

“This will give everyone the opportunity to do their part to reduce our state’s use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gases,” Ige said in a news release.

Applicants can have the installations — solar photovoltaic systems, solar thermal water heaters, solar PV water heaters or heat pump water heaters — without any upfront costs and will get immediate savings, according to the Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority’s website.

HGIA, which is offering the program, will provide loans to contractors to install systems for approved applicants. Repayment of the loans will come in monthly installments that are added to their utility bills.

Gwen Yamamoto-Lau, executive director of HGIA, said the financing has 5.5 percent interest due over 20 years.

The program is available to everyone but was designed with lower-income renters in mind.

“We offer financing alternatives with loan eligibility and criteria that are less stringent than traditional underwriting, where incomes and credit scores are not factors in the loan decisions,” Yamamoto-Lau said.

One of the two requirements for approved applicants is that they are customers of Hawaiian Electric Co., Maui Electric Co. or Hawaii Electric Light Co. without any recent disconnection notices.

The second requirement is that their estimated savings, plus the monthly repayments, must be at least 10 percent of the applicant’s utility bill prior to installation.

The estimated savings are based on an applicant’s current energy use and “historical usage,” a predetermined amount that HGIA calculates depending on the composition of the household or business.

Yamamoto-Lau said that there is no hard cap on how much an applicant can receive through the GEM$ program, but that it is determined by the estimated utility savings.

HGIA started accepting applications for GEM$ in June, and Hawaiian Electric Cos. started measuring applicants’ energy use Monday.

The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission allowed HGIA to take applications for the GEM$ program in June but officially approved it in December.