 Okay, we're back, we're live with Jay Griffin. We are so excited to be here. Thank you so much for coming down, Commissioner. Nice to see you on a Monday morning. Thanks, Jay. Good to see you too. Good to hear from you, Marco. And Marco's here. Marco's here by phone from Provision Solar in Hilo. And he's the guy who organized this show, so we have to give him credit. Credit goes to you, Marco. The best for last, we had Chair Randy Awase, not going to fall for that. We had Jenny Potter two weeks ago, and now we're rocking with Dr. Jay Griffin, so truly saving the best for last. Okay, with that in mind, I'm going to let you lead off because I know you have questions for Jay. Thank you so much for being with Jay and Jay and Marco, JJ&M on this Aloha Monday here in December, a beautiful 2018. So yeah, the questions, of course, never end, and I guess my first one will be kind of a broad one. What are your principal takeaways from being on the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission for now one and a half years as I count the calendar? Sure, thanks Marco. And first, yeah, it's certainly not the best for last. We've been fortunate. This is the three-part series. I know Randy and Jenny were happy to participate, so hopefully I can carry their good work that they've done. Well, you always happen in the past, so. Oh, no, no. Okay, so key takeaways. Yeah, I can think probably, let me take that in two parts. One, I can say, organizationally, the commission itself, since I've come on, really I think, I mean, we're in a much better place certainly than when I started on staff in 2012. And really, that's the legacy of, well, Frank, I'd say two people, former chair, Marita, and our current chair. The reorganization of the commission started a while ago. We had the ability to hire up to our present number of staff, but we were roughly at about half there when I started. We moved to a different agency under or attached to DCCA now. I think that has helped our internal operations. And so a lot of that happened prior to Randy coming in, and then he really helped with that transition. So now we're in a place where we do have the autonomy, the administrative autonomy that Statute says that we should have, and we've hired up to close to a full complement of staff. And that's really been his consistent effort on that to make that happen during his term. So to round that out, we have a very energetic, enthusiastic staff, great people to work with. We're very fortunate from that respect. So I think that's takeaway one, where we've built momentum as an organization, and I think we've also built momentum through carrying out our workload and a lot of our decisions over the past, particularly in the past year. We've dealt with, at one point, we had a lot, I think it was 10 or 11 different rate cases simultaneously. We've managed all those within statutory timelines and typically issued our decisions on time or ahead of time. Same with concluding things, making decisions. Correct. Yeah. Similar with a lot of the major power purchase agreements that have come before us in that timeframe, as well as some of the key policy dockets. So we've really built momentum in our decision making. That's great. Jennifer talked about that, too. Follow up on that as well. Thank you for that answer. What is surprise? This is kind of a two-part question. What is surprised you the most, Jay? And what have you found to be the kind of the most challenging or disappointing in your year and a half there? Well, there's no disappointments. Working in a government agency, that is, well, I'm a speechless. No, no, no, no. Well, Marco, let me offer this. I learned this in the service. There's two kinds of people in the service. There's one kind that likes his duty station and the other kind it doesn't. So Jay is obviously the kind of guy who likes his duty station. I'm very happy. This is one of the best jobs I've ever had. It's all right. Very happy with that. And as well as the people that I work with. They're most surprising. Look, I think, like I've said this before, I think the workload that we have on a lot of our regulated entities that are outside, you know, outside of the typical public view. During this timeframe, we've reviewed and approved the merger with point telecom Cincinnati Bell, a ton of work, day to day work with a lot of our smaller motor carriers, the amount of work that goes into some other rate cases for the small water and sewer utility. So just I think a lot of the work that goes on behind the scenes. I mean, my view on that for every decision we make, it's really important to somebody. So, you know, I think we still have to keep that attention to detail and kind of focus in these areas that don't necessarily get the spotlight. And what is it? It's just a lot of work there. I think we're continuing to do better and see it through. So that's probably that continues to surprise. Disappointing. I don't know. I joked earlier. I, you know, I'm I'm we're optimistic about the progress that we're making. I think we have we still like anyone or any organization's still have room to improve. And I but I I lose sleep over a lot of decisions. But I can't say I've I there's nothing that is a vast disappointment to me yet. Now I have some questions that you've touched on. You've moved. And then you've moved back. I mean, you have a new you have a new facility now. Yeah. What's what's the difference between where you are and where you are? So no, I didn't bring that up earlier. Actually, yeah, in the middle of all this, we've also remodeled our office space. So we've actually still stayed in the present building, but about half of our staff had to move into an annex. And now we have the two, the two floors of our building fully remodeled. We have a beautiful hearing room. Happy to host you guys and take a view of that. It's actually the old historic means historic building, but it was actually the original hearing room from the Commission. So beautiful high ceilings, impressive room. And we've had a number of our stakeholder conferences there. So we're, I think we're we're in great shape there also, we have more room for a conference like more room for more people, more room that we host these things internally. But it's also really good to have all of our staff under the same roof. We I think, because it happened during my time on staff that we started moving people over the annex and, you know, that physical separation, it's, it has real effects. So I think it's good to see everyone back together. It's easy to go grab somebody and talk and when you need to. Yeah, you know, I was asking you before we started about noting that the circuit court and the district court, at least in Honolulu are going to be in fact, it must be statewide, because the Chief Justice, you know, arranged it are doing electronic filing now. Are you doing electronic filing? If I want to file, we have a process to do that. I think, let me take two tax on this one where we're as a result of the audit, you know, our document management system was harshly criticized. I think it was mostly warranted. We're re we're taking a revisit of overhauling that system. And that's going to be one of the initiatives that the Commission, I think we have a solid plan for how to improve that system. And part of it is a better e filing system. So that that capability exists now. But I would say it's still not necessarily that efficient in how the e filings are handled. So most people are still filing a lot of stuff. So it's optional, you can find a litigant I can finally the way you know, and I was I was saying to that, you know, that there's a trend in this country to provide tools, electronic tools to regulators and judicial organizations where they can take electronic filings that are scanned in, and they can examine them electronically and look for keywords and citations, even arguments, they can break it down better than a table of contents or index would break it down. Is this is this in the picture? You have dreams and hopes at three o'clock in the morning about this guy? No, I was joking with you earlier, these trying to automate our staff and commissioners out of a job. How many wants to do that? No, no, look, I think, you know, any of these tools that can help, particularly some of these files are massive. They we just received a helco great case for white electric light company on Friday. It was three boxes of binders. So, you know, I think searching particularly trying to search through filings like that, any of these tools that can help save your time, save the staff time, too. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about chemistry, too. You are talking about energy, maybe PUC commissioner, and I'm asking about chemistry, but it's not the chemistry you think. So you used to have three people there. Okay, now, let's try it. Yeah, it's all going to change in January. So my first question is how has the arrival of Jennifer Potter changed the chemistry? My second question is, how will the departure of Randy Uasi change the chemistry? Sure. Look, we have a great working relationship with the three commissioners. I think we've all said that now on the show. But I mean, that's very much the case. I think it's reflected in kind of the, as I was eluding earlier, the momentum decisions, kind of the timely decision making. So I think we have a great working relationship with very complementary skills. If you look, you know, Jenny and I come from much more of an energy background, but probably a little different focus in areas. Randy, you know, did not have that when he came on, but I think our skill sets are very complementary. We've gotten along very well. So she's been a great addition. Randy, the state and the commission have been very fortunate to have his leadership. Well, let me let me transpose that into January first. Okay. Randy's going to retire at the end of the year. It's really a week away in terms of business days. Yeah. And, you know, there's nobody unless, you know, I don't know what happened recently, but there's nobody appointed to succeed him. So here we go January 1st, January 2nd. There's two of you now, not three. What happens? How does that change the chemistry? How do you, how do you operate? Because you're a senior, does that mean you're sort of de facto acting chair? Is that what it means? No, no, no. So a few things to clarify. Yeah, there's a, you know, Randy is about to the, I think his last official day is December 28th. I'm not sure where things stand in name or replacement. Then the commission can go on with two commissioners. When I came in, my seat was vacant for, I think it was about six weeks. So, you know, we still, it's still majority decision making, but I'm less, I think that's less of a concern. I think we have a good handle on our workload than where things stand. And, you know, I think, so I think there's not, that's not necessarily as potentially disruptive. I think the challenge is that the chair is the designated executive of the agency. So a lot of our administrative functions all require the chair to, you know, sign off on things. And so I, I mean, if there's a vacancy, I would assume that, you know, the governor would still have to appoint somebody. You know, seniority is not, I mean, they would make a choice for who's sitting. Okay. Well, to continue on chemistry, Marco, after this break, you know, you might consider asking Jay about his hopes and dreams about Randy's successor. Let's see if you will answer that. We take a short break. We'd be right back with Jay Griffin, PUC commissioner. Marco Mangostorf joins us from Provision Solar and Hilo. We'll be right back. Minasan konnichiwa. Think Tech Hawaii ga Nihongo de otodoke suru. Konnichiwa Hawaii no Nihongo housou no Kosto, Kunisue Yukari desu. Kaku-shuu Gettsuyobino niji kara otodoke shite imasu. Nihongo Community, Hawaii no Nihongo Community ni benri na otasuke jouhou, news, nado o guest o maneki shite otodoke suru bangumi desu. Konnichiwa Hawaii Kaku-shuu no Gettsuyobi niji kara Sehima-san mite kudasai. Kosto no Kunisue Yukari deshita. Aloha. And Aloha. My name is Calvin Griffin, the host of Hawaii Uniform. And every Friday at 11 o'clock here on Think Tech Hawaii, we bring in the latest in what's happening within the military community. And we also invite all your response to things that's happening here. For those of you who haven't seen the program before, again, we invite your participation. We're here to give information, not disinformation. And we always enjoy response from the public. But join us here, Hawaiian Uniform Fridays, 11 a.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Okay, we're back. We're live with Jay Griffin, PUC Commissioner and Marco Mangostorf, who's now got some questions he wants to pose here in the second half of our show. Marco speaking of chemistry since I've been twirling away with my chemistry said here listening to guys talk about chemistry. What qualities and qualifications would you like to see Jay Griffin in your next colleague on the commission? Sure. You know, the I think kind of the resume level qualifications are I mean, that's that's foundational. You know, somebody that that understands what the commission does some good knowledge, working level knowledge of the current issues before us. But I think probably I mean, I would say one of the first and foremost is mean strong commitment to public service. I, you know, I joked earlier this, you know, I says one of the best jobs I've ever had, but it's definitely not for everyone. We're in the public eye all the time. You know, you know that you feel the weight of the decisions that we make, you know, that carries a lot of responsibility. And I think there's there's a lot of other opportunities out there that may be appealing to people. So you're working hard. Yeah, I mean, the workload is is significant and not expecting to go away. I mean, like I said, just we got three binders dropped off on us on Friday and those rate cases, you know, these are decisions that affect the life of every person in business on the islands and the counties and communities that that are involved. And, you know, we go out to hearing and we certainly hear that. So, you know, these are these are all things that weigh heavily on you as you're, you know, taking all this information. And so, you know, I, I, you know, I think that is probably more central than any specific set of skills. I think I've observed, I probably was a bigger proponent of more background in the area. But I've watched Randy come up to speed really quickly and kind of learn, you know, how to judge. I mean, he trusts the staff. And so, I think, you know, I think people that are that are quick learners and motivated to be in the position, I think, can certainly come up to speed. You know, of course, the governor has the opportunity, the power to, to appoint somebody as a commissioner and the chair commissioner, or he can appoint one of the existing commissioners as the chair and appoint the new person as, you know, one of the non chair commissioners, you know. Yeah. So I mean, how do you feel about that? I'll tell you my feeling and I'm interested in yours. I feel that all things being equal that somebody who's been sitting on the commissioner is is probably a better candidate for chair. That's my feeling you can react or not. Look, I'm like, I think we're all anxiously awaiting the decision. I think the governor's and the governor and governor staff track record on appointments to the commission. I have a biased perspective on it to being good. And I expect that, you know, expect nothing less with the next one. In terms of, we ought to spend a little time before we run out of time to talk about, you know, the dockets that are going to be powerful. Ooh, that's a terrible double on time. I'm going forward. And the one that comes to mind first is the Pacific based I'm rather performance based regulation and rates, I suppose. So what what in general is before you? And what's the magnitude of this issue? How is it? How is it likely to affect the energy landscape and the state going forward? Sure. So let me give the quick overview of where we currently stay in the dock and what we've stayed sketched out. We always set this up as a two phase process. And we and Jesus started in, let me get this wrong, May, our opening order. We intended to take this year to go through the first phase. We've gone through three different workshops, one reviewing the existing regulatory framework, another kind of critiquing that another one looking at goals and outcomes and metrics. So we've been through those. We've received briefs from the parties in January. We expect our staff to produce a report that will be put out for stakeholder comment. And that will inform an ultimate decision on this phase on the first phase of the docket. And I think what we're looking to accomplish is in summarize that review of holistic review of the existing framework, point out areas that may need refinements or improvements and then spend the next year working through the details because this is absolutely an area where the details are critical to getting right. So we've tried to put out a very, I think, thoughtful process, but one that also keeps things moving along. So we're close to halfway. And I think we've been trying to build each workshop builds from the substance material, but kind of in the importance of the topics that we're taking on and decision making. It seems especially important for this particular docket to invite comments, to give an inclination and then invite comments from the stakeholders and for that matter from the public because it could result in a dramatic change. Correct. We've tried to be very inclusive. So all of the parties that have saw intervention were admitted. We've held the stakeholder workshops that were and are open to the public there and broadcast those. We had the recordings available that a level came. We invited others that were not parties to come and present, including some representatives of the financial community. So we heard a lot in the beginning, people speculating on what Wall Street thought of these kinds of impacts. So we said, why don't we invite representatives from Wall Street and speak for themselves. And so all the presentations are available to our docket management system. So I think, yeah, we've tried to make this a broad inclusive conversation so far. And we have professional facilitation by Rocky Mountain Institute. Oh, you do. And a great team of consultants supporting us on it, supporting the commission on it. So this is definitely the highest profile, our highest priority docket. So why is it the highest priority document? What are the, what could the implications for the state, for the citizens of the state be? How far could this reach in terms of the way it changes our lives? I think it is core. We're doing a review of the existing regulatory framework to make sure that the kind of tools and mechanisms align our electric, our investor on electric utilities with the outcomes that we seek from them. And so there's some very traditional stuff, affordable rates, reliable service. But as I think everyone knows here, we've set some very ambitious clean energy goals and trying to make sure that the existing framework that's in place is better aligned. So I think the ultimate outcome here is a better functioning electric utility that is closely aligned with what the state says that we want. Yeah, you know, it's nice to have aspirational goals in 2045. But gee whiz, you've got to take steps to get there. Always have to be mindful of action points and facilitating action points. So anyway, Marco, you have questions about the documents. This is your big opportunity. Well, I think Jay's kind of addressed. I mean, from what I just heard that the PBR is a fairly big kid on the block right now. And you and Jenny, the next commissioner, along with so many of the energy stakeholders, including myself, see this is really a big, big deal compared to stuff that's not such a big deal. And I'm kind of curious. I've long wanted to ask you this kind of civil question, which is, as the Public Utilities Commission, there are a number of utilities that you guys are responsible for. Energy, communications, water, sewer. Am I leaving something out? Transportation. I can't leave out transportation. Right. Yeah. Out of all the efforts that you and the staff put into all these dockets and all these issues, is energy the biggest chunk of the pie in terms of stuff that you guys deal with? Yeah. Well, first, I remember there's 1,700 entities that the commission regulates. The vast majority of those are the motor carriers. But if we take this back, there's a couple angles on this to take. The ones that we regulate or oversee that have the broadest touch on residents and businesses' lives here, I think, are collectively the energy utilities. So the four electric utilities, KIC, and then the three investor, or Hawaiian Electric, Maui Electric, Hawaii Electric-like company, Hawaii Gas. So I think kind of from an impact on everyone's lives standpoint, from a revenue standpoint, if you look at those collectively, they're well over $2 billion in revenue per year. That's just in what they collected revenues. But if you look more broadly at how those costs permeate through the economy, it's more significant. But also the other business activity related to it. So if you look at all the impact of new energy development in the state, there's going to be hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment in the coming years with all the major solar projects that are going online, as well as the companies like Marcos that are involved in customer side. So when you look at this collectively, they are, by far, I'd say, the broadest impacts. But what I've also learned is that's not to neglect our smaller ones. Take a company like Young Brothers. Anyone in the state their lives are affected by the operations of Young Brothers. And if you look at, particularly, our small water and wastewater companies, if you look at the list in kind of their geography, most of the rural parts of the state are all served by these companies. So I don't try not to lose sight of these factors also. We're going to have a session here in January. Not to, that's only three business weeks away. Do you think the PUC should get, should want, should ask? I don't know if it does ask, but maybe it does for some kind of bill, some kind of relief, some kind of help in the legislative sessions. Is there anything pending that would have a direct impact on what you do with the PUC? So actually, I'm not briefed on our most recent kind of our pending legislative request at the moment. I know, generally, we've just tried to fight for our share of the revenue taxes that we collect. I think now that we have hired up for our staff, we're still living within our budget, but sometimes are a little tighter. We are looking to overhaul our document management system. And that's going to, that's a multi-year project, I think probably to the tune of a few million dollars. So we're going to need appropriation to support that. But I know my fellow commissioner will be looking right now. She's paying out of pocket all of her expenses to travel here to Oahu, participate on the commission. And there's been attempts to address that in the past. And hopefully that will be successful this time. I hope I hope they will, because it seems only fair. And we want to encourage Neighbor Island commissioners. I, it's always surprised me when I heard it. The commission was fortunate in the past that former commissioners, Marita and Champley did pay out of pocket to be here. So it was, you know, cost to them for their public service. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure Marco will agree, right? Yeah, I too very much hope that it's something that the legislature will take up because, you know, being a longtime resident of one of the Neighbor Islands, I think I can conclude with great certainty that there is a perception that there is a kind of an Oahu-centricness in this state. So anything that can be done to be able to encourage and support people like Jenny Potter, Mike Champley, Meena Marita as commissioners from other than Oahu, I think is of the public interest. So I hope that, I hope that moves forward. One more thing, Jay, looking into the crystal ball, you know, you said we have a rate case pending now by the Hawaiian Electric companies, I guess. Helco, yeah. OK, and Helco, right, that big island. OK, and they're asking for an increase, I guess, when I saw in the civil beat. Three plus percent, Jay, for what it was. For a little over $13 million in revenue increase. At the same time, you know, we're doing more renewables these days and everything's pointing in that direction. And it seems like what we've heard is that renewables are becoming cheaper. That solar and wind are actually becoming cheaper, which is from God in his heaven. This should happen. So here we are on the way to 2045. We have how many X years left to get there? Do you see, and you know, on your mind's eye as a commissioner, do you see that over time we'll be able to hold rates in general at the current rate? Or will we be able to reduce those rates going forward because of the reduction in costs of renewables? Or will other factors require us to increase those rates? I mean, how do you see it from where we stand now? Our goal has been and continues to be to push for a decline, I mean, kind of downward trajectory in rates and particularly in the generation costs. And the results are not public yet, but this current round of renewable solicitation I think will help take us in that direction. It's important to note that at least in the past four to six months, oil prices have crept back up. And if you look at the avoided cost of energy produced on pretty much all the islands right now, it's above the cost of, I think, pretty much all the recently approved renewable projects, but as well as customer, the export compensation for customer-cited generation for all the post-net energy metering projects. So this idea that renewables are cheaper than oil at the moment when oil prices are high, it's kind of across the board for all the kind of recent wave of projects. But moving into the future, I think we help to really build on that. There are going to be additional costs along the way. There's going to need we have a question for investment in the electric utilities, grids, help modernize them. So I think and other types of integration technologies, energy storage is promising at the moment and has come in relatively cost-effective, but we'll see how that continues to play out. But there's going to be other tools that we need to invest in. So I think the near-term prognosis is actually quite positive. But there's still, still, I mean, we're roughly about a third of the way there to the 100% goal. We're at 27% last year. Yeah. Promising. Promising is the operative word. Promising. If I get, if I get added to that as well, and I'll shamelessly put a plug-in for Dave Vistle and his crew at KIUC and in the regard that since they have been very proactive and aggressive, I would say, in replacing combustion generation with renewables and storage over the past years, they actually have been able to essentially flatten out the cost of electricity because they're bringing on cheaper renewables replacing more expensive sources, i.e. oil, oil-based. So we do have utility in the state who has been able to, through their aggressive pursuit of cost-effective renewables, put essentially a cap on what for the wine electric companies has been more of an upward trend if you look at the graph of the cost of wine electric produced electricity. Marko's right. And if, I mean, when you speak with Dave and their board, I think they're candid that they don't expect a radical drop in rates, but they're hoping to stabilize and maybe lower a little bit. And that's been their trend. And they've at least said that they don't expect a file for a rate case for quite a while. That basically their savings on buying the renewables versus oil can offset some of their increased in staff costs as well as any investment. Great to hear. It's all promising, isn't it? Absolutely. I wouldn't be here and excited in this job if that wasn't the case. Thank you, Jay. Jay Griff in PUC Commission. Good to see you guys. It's so nice to see you. Happy holidays. You take care, Marko. And thanks very much, gentlemen. And I just want to shamelessly put a plug in for you, Jay Griff, and that I think it's great that as a dedicated public servant that you have been and will continue to be that you bring an enthusiasm and a passion and a dedication to your position as so many others in the commission do. So kudos to you and thanks very much. Oh, I appreciate it. It's a good place to be and good time. Thank you, Marko. Thank you, Jay. Thanks, guys. Aloha.