 Welcome to Power Up Hawaii, where Hawaii comes together to walk towards a clean, renewable, and just energy future. I am your host, Raya Salter. I'm a clean energy attorney, clean energy advocate, and community outreach specialist. I'm also the principal attorney of Imagine Power LLC. Today, we're going to take a look at important energy and utility news from Hawaii, around the country, and the world, as reported in the last week. So let's go ahead and take a look at some recent developments and clean energy and clean energy policy in Hawaii. And there is always so much going on and clean energy in the islands. The biggest thing probably happening for anybody who watches Think Tech would definitely be that Verge 2017 kicked off today at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. So Verge happens each year in partnership with the Hawaii State Energy Office. And it has come back to Hawaii to try and move the conversation forward, the conversation about the state's transformation to a clean energy future. So we've got Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit is the focus, and we're going to take a look at how the technology itself can help the state achieve its ambitious mandates for 100% renewables by 2045 while making the economy more robust and resilient. So I think a lot of everyone's going to be at Verge. Everyone is always at Verge every year. Last week I spoke, I think twice at Verge. There's always a lot of exciting things happen. You get new tech companies. I think it's neat. This time we're going to have a focus on the technology itself. You know, I'll go ahead and say, you hear rumblings, people are like, gosh, yet another conference. Is it going to be the same crew all coming around together to talk about the same stuff? In my experience, no, Verge is exciting. Come in from all over the world to see how Hawaii is leading on clean energy, the state energy office. Make sure of it. Everybody who's anybody's there. In fact, I'm here. I'm missing Verge. So we'll see what comes out of Verge this year. One of the technology companies that's actually going to be featured at Verge is Maui-based five energy systems. So I think this is a cool story. We've got a company that's coming forward with what they're saying is a fully integrated energy storage system for commercial and residential use. So the residential storage system is designed to store one full day of energy needs, the company said in a statement. So combined with a rooftop PV system, the system enables customers to eliminate monthly utility bills. I've recently installed its first residential system on Maui after it received approval from the PUC. So in a quote from Hive, Hive's battery storage systems are the ideal solution for any off-grid or grid-tied residential application. So this is from the CTO of Hive. Now, the storage system does not require solar energy. It can also be used with wind or any type of renewable energy source. Hive also installed its first commercial battery storage system on Maui. The 500 kilowatt-hour unit could, in combination with a 140 kilowatt PV system, deliver energy free of natural fluctuations that occur during the day or after sunset, the company said. Why is this so important? Why am I bringing in news of one company based on Maui that's moving some storage forward? We've talked about this a lot in the future. We know we had the end of the net metering program, which was clearly a great deal for those who could afford to or just have the will to get involved in reducing their energy bill and using solar and being able to sell their excess energy back to the utility at the retail rate, which is the exact same rate that that person would pay. This created some real bill savings for a lot of folks. We've talked here about the controversy about that, and I think studies have shown that in places like Hawaii where there is a tremendous amount of PV, rooftop residential PV penetration, because of high energy prices, it can create some inequities in terms of wealthier folks taking advantage of those programs and other folks remaining on the grid and having to pick up those costs. The utility also claims that there are services that they provide to those customers that they are compensated for. Those on the other side, however, they'll say several different things in defense of net metering and in defense of residential solar. A, we need to have private actors, the private market and residents be a part of this clean energy revolution. Folks have the right to generate their own energy if they so choose, and we need solar energy. We need solar power in order to get off the field. So we've had this debate. What happened in Hawaii? They shut down the net metering program as we all well know, and they came up with these two grid and self-supply programs, and we're going to talk a little more about that, and we've talked about it in the past. But these programs, both of which are cap, at which the status tried to address, have had some problems. They've had some problems in finding a configuration that will work, finding a configuration perhaps not that will work, that will work for everybody, including the permit officers. So it is, and also we've talked about this in the context of the tremendous competition that's happening in the battery industry right now. This technology is coming forward. It's just about, I think it's showing that it's ready to take folks' energy load on their shoulders, and we'll talk a little bit more about that, certainty about these technologies, and what it means for the reliability of the grid writ large. We'll talk about that a little bit later in the show, too. So we've got this technology that's coming forward, becoming more reliable, getting less expensive, however, still expensive, still untested, and you've got a bunch of companies from Tesla and many others who are competing, hot and heavy in this market to provide battery solutions, and it is happening here in Hawaii, here, if not more or first than other places. So when a company comes forward with a solution that they can get approved, it's a big deal. It's something that we should take a look at in the context of the bigger picture. Let's see. Of course, what we want is the integration of more clean energy. We want customers to have flexibility and power to make energy choices and reduce their energy bills if they so choose or go off grid if they so choose. However, we need to make sure that the rest of the folks on the grid, including low to moderate income, don't end up holding the bag and also see clean energy and the benefits of clean energy and the benefits of great relief. Boy, that's a lot to say. But these are issues we talk about all the time on the show. So cool. Let's watch five energy and how it performs, just like we're watching Tesla on Kauai to see how it is performed. So more about this issue is in this next story. So Hawaii Energy Industry stakeholders and the city and county of Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting have been working on improving the process for battery storage permits. And according to reports, it has paid dividends. So Hawaii Energy stakeholders in the city and county have been working on improving this process. And they've been meaning to make it happen. And so they say battery storage permits are being approved at a much faster pace here. So this is what the Hawaii Solar Energy Association is saying. Elemental accelerator, the Distributed Energy Resources Council of Hawaii, and HSD-A collaborated on the effort to improve the permitting process. So last month, the number of PV systems with battery storage permitted by the department reached a new record, according to an analysis of data from the department. Of the 163 PV permits issued on Oahu in May, 13 included battery storage permits. So the quote is, after the involvement of a number of parties, it would appear that the permitting department has begun to open the gate to allow more battery systems to be installed. Says, think tech's own Marko Mango Store of Hilo-based provision solar. You conducted the analysis. So with over 600 battery-based customer self-supply PV systems in the HECO pipeline, as of late last month, and only around 40 of them approved for operation, there remains a substantial disconnect between sold and permitted customer self-supply systems. So we talked about this story before, too. We've got, I think it was just last week, actually, there's a glut with permitting. I mean, there's, some may argue there's often been a glut in terms of getting clean energy projects all the way through the approval process. But there's been a real glut, a real sort of blockage of permitting for the storage aspects. Now, of course, if we're in the grid supply or self-supply program, odds are you're going to have a storage component, because this is actually going off the grid, you're going to need storage for when there are others. What the other story calls natural fluctuations at different times of the day and at night. So you kind of have to have a way to account for battery plus PV or wind or energy efficiency or whatever else somebody wants to have on that system. So what's been happening as the article says is that the PV, I think what has really been happening according to folks I've been talking to, folks are used to the specs on the PV. They're used to how they perform. They've got industry warranties that they've come to understand. The folks at the permitting office are not expected to be the AC triple E scientists who are figuring out whether stuff is going to be good or safe. So here comes these battery systems, battery systems, some of them with one. I think the word I heard is that some of them are being put with sort of an excess of battery storage, if you want to say, more than one system that I think caused them head scratching amongst the folks at the permit office. So we've had these projects come forward wanting to participate in these programs and they can only get one piece of the project approved and that's got to be really frustrating when you feel the clock is running on your investment and you want to get moving and participate in this program and clear this queue. So according to the story, we've still gone along queue when it comes to these programs, but with the help of Elemental Accelerator and other stakeholders, folks who do the batteries, the group that works with the solar, looks like they're coming together to help grease those wheels. And I think that's great. It's good when stakeholders can come together. Let's just always make sure. I just always want to say, I think so many good things happen when stakeholders come together to grease wheels and to help with blockages and move things forward. But I think I'm just always going to be that person who says, okay, where is that low income stakeholder? Where is that stakeholder that has something, has a stake? We're just even a residential customer. That's what I'm about. And it's not the fault of these groups that we may not have those people at the table, but we need to get those folks at the table more and more often and I think we'll have more equitable results as we move forward with our feet. So the next story, which I'll talk just a little about before we get to the break, looks like that we all know that the Trump administration has been not so bullish on clean energy, but it looks like it is still going to come forward with at least $12 million on the ocean power. Folks think that ocean power can compete in the big leagues with wind and solar. Wind and solar power are the heavy hitters of the global clean energy revolution, but the US DOE is still focusing an eyeball on ocean power and things just got a little more interesting. We're going to talk about this more when we come back after this break for PowerUp Hawaii, please join us. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, where we motivate, educate and power and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. And we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. Hello everyone, I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life, not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on. So welcome back to PowerUp Hawaii, where Hawaii comes together to walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future. I'm your host, Raya Salter. We were just talking about ocean power. It seems that the spite they get about look from the federal folks right now in the Trump administration on clean energy and despite the threat of steep budget cuts proposed by President Trump, Department of Energy is forging ahead with a new round of $12 million in funding for ocean power projects, specifically aimed at accelerating the development of game-changing low-cost wave energy converters. So the 12 million is a giant step up from the first iteration of the Wave Energy Program, which launched back in 2015 with a 2.25 million pot in the form of the Wave Energy Prize talent. So this article is not, this news story is not specifically about Hawaii, but of course it would not probably stretch anyone's imagination to realize that the potential that wave energy would have for Hawaii and the islands of Hawaii. Now the Obama administration had put forward some tests, I think a pilot is what they called it, Project on Wave Energy here. I think we've got some of the best researchers. Offshore wind is something that's been talked a lot about here and I think Hawaii is a sort of clear and obvious spot to try and figure some of these challenges out. This money, however, does seem to be coming forward with an eye towards the northeast. So according to this article, Wave Power has a tremendous potential to provide energy to the east and northeast in particular. So I wanted to be sure to mention this story in that if we're going to be beefing up on Wave Energy, I would like to think that projects in Hawaii and researchers in Hawaii will continue to be on the forefront of that. And that of course is so important. ThinkTech talks all the time about Hawaii as to how important science is to Hawaii and having world-class science that addresses the challenges the islands face that can go on also to help the rest of the world. So in general for Clean Energy, it's good news that we've got this Wave project moving forward. We know the Trump administration is looking to cut back on the Office of Clean Energy Research and Energy Efficiency. I think it's a terrible mistake. I think it's worth noting here that they talk about solar and wind being the big dogs. We don't know, we don't truly know what types of technology could come forward that could continue to transform the state. I think one of the things that's neat when you talk about, when you look at sort of a curve and when they talk about grid parity for solar, meaning that solar power is starting to go at or below the price, the current sort of standard price of traditional coal generation. And you look at that curve and if you look at that curve along a timeline, I've seen ones, a Deutsche Bank study from two years ago, they've got this sort of line, this drop in that curve and they call it the innovation, the innovation. So we can't necessarily predict the things that are coming forward. And while it's been residential solar has been big and large part due to net metering and other subsidies that have created this market and created a lot of awareness. Wind, offshore wind, wave energy, there's a lot that could come forward to help find the solutions that we need for our energy challenges. So that's just sort of a neat thing. In fact, as an attorney, I've often, I've started to think that we need to have more creative causes in some of these contracts because there's a risk, of course, of locking in a price. But if the innovation curve is eminent, query if that's something that isn't valuable enough that the parties can think about allocating. So that's just, that's sort of something I've been thinking about. And since we're talking about finance, I've just got a quick story about the Bank of Hawaii. Bank of Hawaii has reduced its position and consolidated Edison in New York by 2.5% during the first quarter, according to its most recent, Form 13F filing with the SEC. So the fund owned 16,533 shares of the utility's provider stock after selling 419 shares during the period. So Bank of Hawaii's holdings and Consonant Ed were worth over a million dollars at the end of the most recent quarter. So why am I talking about what's in Bank of Hawaii's portfolio? Well, as you know, I came here from the New York City area. I used to work in Con Ed, Con Edison's legal affairs department. So when I see that type of tie, it's something that is going to catch my eye. And I think I wanted to bring it up because it's just important for us to realize how interdependent and global our economies are. I mean, of course, this is Bank of Hawaii's portfolio, but it says a lot, I think, about utility stocks. I'm not trying to make any statement about Con Ed's stock and how it's bearing, but traditionally, utilities have been a pretty safe bet. And it's always important to keep our eye on the landscape in terms of the investors. Investor-owned utilities is this business model that we're engaged in in most jurisdictions. So keeping our eye on the investors, keeping an eye on portfolios and just putting in a little flag, a little marker at how interdependent we all are. So I didn't realize when I was sitting in Manhattan in legal affairs department, eating an awesome Rubin sandwich from Pat's Deli with a people in French fries, that the Bank of Hawaii was part of the portfolio and that I would soon be here enjoying my bokeh. So speaking of flying from coast to coast, something I thought that was worth mentioning that talks about energy and also the natural environment. So a lawsuit has been launched to stop Hawaii's airport, harbor lights from killing rare sea birds. So conservation groups today filed a formal notice of intent to sue the Hawaii Department of Transportation for failing to prevent bright lighting at state operated airports in harbors on Kauai, Maui, and Lanai from causing injuries and death to three species of critically imperiled sea birds. So the Nual's Shearwater is a threatened species and Hawaiian petrels and ban-rumped storm petrels in Hawaii are endangered species. According to today's notice from, ah, excellent. Huei ho'o ma'alu i ka'aina, Conservation Council for Hawaii and the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, the department's failure to protect these native sea birds from harmful operations at its facilities, violates the Federal Endangered Species Act. Since ancient times, Hawaiian fishermen have looked to the particular bird, Nual's Shearwater, to help them find fish, said Kauai fishermen Jeff Chandler. This is from the group that works to protect cultural and natural resources. They're an important part of our culture and the Department of Transportation needs to take seriously its responsibility to protect them. The sea birds circle the bright lights at the department's facilities until they fall to the ground from exhaustion or crashed into nearby buildings. Bright lights have contributed significantly to the catastrophic 94% decline in the population of threatened Nual's Shearwaters on Kauai since the 90s. They have also harmed endangered Hawaiian petrels, whose numbers on Kauai have plummeted by 78% in the state of Missouri. So, you know, this is always, you know, of course this is light, you know, as an energy person, sometimes the world of, you know, what the technology can do to the natural world can become an afterthought, or as a dealer and M&A person, that frustrating thing that's stopping a deal from going through, gosh, those turtles or gosh, whatever, and we're trying to sell billions of dollars worth of, you know, assets to, we're trying to, big things are changing hands. And, you know, the search to get things done is real, but it's extremely alarming that the bright lights are killing these birds, these endangered birds. And it sounds like a 94% reduction and the incidence of this one bird is tragic. According to this article, these lights, there is a way to mitigate these issues. Now I can only imagine that the bright lights at the airport, especially on an island like Kauai, that doesn't have, you know, a lot of lights at night have to be too important for the air, you know, air travel. So, you know, I'd like to think that this is something that could be addressed and we could mitigate how this technology works with the natural environment. And I think that it's really, really important that renewable energy, technologies in particular, seek to be at harmony with the natural environment more and more because it is not a trivial issue that technologies can harm, it can poison the water and the earth that it can harm animals. This is not a trivial issue. And if we're going to have more distributed assets, we need, I personally think we need to see, we've all just gotten so used to seeing these utility poles and wires. We need to move them away from our landscapes. Imagine if Hawaii had not put old folks, they couldn't put big billboards up. Imagine what the drives around the island would look like if the advertisers had their say, horrible. We are, we live without those signs. We could live without all that other of the infrastructure. When we went hiking, we weren't constantly hiking to old pieces of rusty old infrastructure. Those wouldn't be our landmarks anymore. Those can start to retreat into the back. So if we're going to have more distributed energy resources, I think we need to be thinking about these technologies as more of a clean energy for clean energy sake. But do they work in harmony with the environment? Are they eyesores? Can they perhaps even enhance the soil landscape or the health of a particular area or community? So I think it's a big deal if lights are burning the animals and I hope to be able to report if there's been some kind of solution to that. All right, Earth Justice, bring it to them. I think we've got time for at least one more story. This is not about Hawaii in particular, but it is about Hawaii and it's a study done by researchers a few ways. So rising temperatures and humidity will make the world's tropics increasingly unlivable by pushing more people to the threshold of their physical tolerance and beyond a new international study fine. So as of 2000, about 30% of the world's population lived in regions where the climate exceeds deadly threshold levels based on temperature and relative humidity levels for at least 20 days a year, said researchers publishing the nature of climate change journal estimates. So even if we do the best we can to avert climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that share will rise to about 48% by the end of the century. And if business as usual continues, it's climbed to 74%. So UH is saying, you're gonna have people cooking because we're not going to have any possibility to cope with this increase in heat. So this is Camilla Mora, paper's lead author and an associate professor in the Department of Geography at UH. So what is going on here? Basically they're saying, remember guys, it's not only rising seas, it's rising. The hot pools here in the islands, for example, that are created because temperatures have been rising in certain parts of the water off the island is a harboring of things. Folks, it gets hot. Who does it bother most? Of course, the KK and our old folks and it's coming for the rest of us too. Air conditioning is expensive. It can only do so much. So a big part of resiliency is figuring out how can we keep ourselves cool? We're gonna get hotter and hotter. Folks here aren't, you know, it isn't hot here. Like it can be in other parts of the world like in the Caribbean where the sun really, really baked ya. But this is something we're all going to have to, we're all going to have to deal with. I'll take a quick word about the next story, which is something that could help us deal with it. So folks are getting more and more interested in grid-integrated hot water heating. So right now, most of us have, many of us have, gas or electric-powered hot water heaters in our house and that's actually a big part of what we use electricity for. So those hot water heaters don't have to just sort of live on their own powering all the time. If we can integrate them into the grid, they can be a resource. They can be a resource that can be turned on and off and help grid operators shift energy around and create efficiencies in the way energy is dispersed to the grid. Even more so in particular in Hawaii if we've got solar hot water heaters potentially. So folks are excited about this. Utilities on the mainland are investing in some of this AMI and some of the advanced metering infrastructure and some of the systems that are needed to manage all that data and there's just a lot of interest in that. So let's see if we can get some of that going here too. And I think that'll just about do us from this week's edition of Power Up Hawaii. I hope that you enjoyed learning a little bit about what's going on in Hawaii and around the world this week in clean energy. Thank you so much for joining, that's thank you so much for joining me, signing off your host, Bria Salter, Aloha and Mahalo.