 We're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Think Tech here on a given Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday is always special because it's Hawaii the state of clean energy and Mitch Ewing and I, we do this thing about energy and we really like doing it. It's a sort of a, it's an important part of our week. Okay. Hi Mitch. Hello RJ from Kaniyoi Bay. All right. There it is. Okay. And we have, we have Shannon Tengenon from Hawaiian Electric. Hi Shannon. Hi Jay. We're going to talk about your new policy on termination of delinquent accounts. I want to hear about that. Okay. And we have Veronica Rocha and she was with DBIT but she has her own company now. What's the name of it? Hi everybody. My name is Veronica Rocha and the name of my company is Essential Leap. All right. Essential Leap. There you go. We're going to talk about, we're going to talk about the economy. She's very important and it may be, it may be a leap and it may be essential. You're in the right place on that. Okay. Let's begin with Hawaiian Electric though Shannon. So a couple of weeks ago we heard from you that Hawaiian Electric was going to extend situations where customers had not or could not pay bills and you weren't going to terminate so quick and you're going to give them extra time. And I'm not sure when that ran out but now the news is that you've extended that. Can you talk about it? Yeah. We've extended our moratorium on service disconnections through June 30. The previous deadline was March 7, I'm sorry, May 17. Sorry about that. So we want to work with our customers. We're urging them to call, not call in or go online and try to put in a payment arrangement plan, a request for a payment arrangement so that they can start the process and we can work with them to help them through this time. I know many of our customers are having financial difficulties because of the pandemic. So we want to be able to assure them that their electricity service will continue through June 30. And in the meantime, please give us a call, contact us online, let us know how we can get you through this time. Yeah, that's always better because you build points with whoever your supplier is when you tell them straight how you're doing and if you can't pay, why you can't pay and all that. Good business on both sides. And it's certainly good business for Hawaiian Electric because these are times in which a lot of people are under financial stress for sure. And it's very, I guess I would use the word kind. It's business like, but it's also kind for you to do that. Here's a cooperation with a heart. Oh, wow. A cooperation with a heart. Well, we definitely want to work with our customers. And we totally understand that, you know, so many of them are having difficulties paying their bills. And for us, we just want to work with them and we understand that it's going to be a difficult road. And so if they can contact us and just let us know what's going on, let us know how we can help you through, you know, what options work for you, what kind of timeframe works for you, you know, to get that done, you know, we'll definitely look at all the options on the table and see what we can do. Well, you know, one thing that comes to mind is this has got to be costing you money because, you know, you're, you're continuing to generate the electricity continuing to pay your expenses and you're letting all these people off the hook. I mean, for a good reason and everything, but yeah, you're taking the brunt, you know, of the, of the financial stress. How does the company feel about that? I mean, you can't afford to do this indefinitely. No, we can't. But, you know, we'll try to work, you know, as long as we can, you know, with our customers to help them along. It definitely makes us nervous. I mean, you know, I think as a business we try as hard as we can to work with our customers as long as we can, you know, to get through this together. I think it's a special Hawaii thing. Maybe it's that the same thing in Hawaii, which gives us such a flat curve, so to speak. It's that it's aloha is what it is. And not only are you offering them aloha, but you're expecting aloha from them. You're, you're asking them to, you know, to be fair with you. And if they don't really have to have a moratorium, they should pay the bill. You know, some companies are okay. You know, they're not in essential industries and they're having cash flow. I wouldn't expect those guys should be calling you and asking you for, for relief. And I think part of the aloha exchange here is that you're fair with them and they're fair with you too. They got to be fair with you. That's the Hawaii thing. You know, it's important. Mitch, what do you got on this? I haven't had one power interruption. And I make sure my landlord pays the bill so that I don't. And so life is pretty good. I mean, I'm, I don't have any real disruption. I just missed the talking in the, you know, the hallways with my colleagues, where all our best ideas come up is not parked in front of the computer, but talking to people. So I think you're doing a great service to keep us going there. Shannon, the electric company and us guys who are working from home, keep us going. So it's great. Let me add one thing to that, you know, and we talked about this before, here in the shutdown, you know, so many people are home. If they're not home all the day, they're home at night anyway. And you know, what do they do at home? Well, they're on the internet, of course, they get a lot of, a lot of nutrition out of the internet, a lot of information. And they're on television. And in fact, you know, the cable services and the movie services have offered all kinds of free things and all kinds of first run movies now. In fact, you know, the movie, what they call the Oscars are going to include first run movies that were never aired in theaters at all, only on television. So what I'm saying is a lot of people are living by watching television. And that means that means they got to have electricity in their homes. We would all be going nuts if we didn't have electricity in their homes. So I think it's every day we should be appreciative to Wine Electric that it makes this possible, because a community at home would like fall apart if we didn't have electrical power. It also allows us to pay our bills like we can pay our credit card bills and we can pay our power bill online. If I didn't have a computer, I mean, how do I get to pay my bill? I'm not allowed to drive on the road or whatever. Now we fully understand. Okay, well, what message do you want to leave with people, Shannon? Let them remember this message, whatever. We just really want our customers to know that we're here for them. We're definitely moving forward with them and we want to work with them, you know, to get them through this difficult time. And so I just want to also say that our walk-in payment offices are also going to be closed, remain closed through June 30 as well. I just want to let people know there are a million different ways, you know, to pay your bill. And also, if you get any kind of threat of disconnection through before June 30, please, please do not pay because it's a scam. Yeah, plenty of that, plenty of that. Okay, so Shannon, I want to tell you at the right hand side of your screen, this is in lieu of taking a break. If you run your mouse at the right hand bottom of your screen, you will see leave the meeting. Okay, I will leave the meeting. We want to say farewell and aloha and then you can click us off. Okay, thank you so much. Take care. Take care. See you soon. It worked. Yes, it worked. Okay, we're doing fine on Zoom. Okay, Veronica, at last we're alone with you. How are you? It's been a while. Yeah, indeed. I remember it very clearly, it seems like only yesterday. So, you know, we're talking about the economy here, everybody's talking about the economy. And I actually, I'm a little disturbed about that because what we should be talking about is how to get ready to reopen the economy. We are not ready to do that yet. But, you know, one thing and another and people are all focused on the economy now. And I, you know, this big question in my mind about that. So, but, you know, it's hard to knit an economy back together again. You know, economies are a combination of deals and exchanges, a combination of goods and services and transactions, millions of transactions. And when they stop, they don't necessarily come back by themselves. When they stop and you want to restart them, you have to look at the thing very carefully and figure out what to start first and how to start it so that you don't wind up putting somebody on the block. You could start a business up, but there'd be nobody to do business with that business. And then that business fails. Even if the business didn't fail in the first place, when you start them up too early or not in the right sequence, you'll fail. So, I guess we should talk about that with you. Can you talk to us about that? Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on your show. I've always enjoyed our conversations and was very pleased when Mitch asked me to participate today. So, thank you so much. So, this concept of restarting the economy, and how do we do it in a way that is most efficacious and that is going to be serving us not only in the short term but also in the long term is one that I've been thinking about more in the context of sustainability. Clean energy, how do we reduce climate emissions? That'd be one significant pathway, but then also in the climate adaptation or resiliency side of things. So, that's why I don't know if you saw, but I put out a newsletter. This was last week laying out time strategies to help revitalize Hawai'i's economy in a way that is going to be cleaner and more prosperous. Wow. Wow. And here we have you now. This is going to be good. So, do you want to start with number one or number six? It's really up to you. Whatever you'd like to start. Start where you want to start, Veronica. Okay. The ones that appeal to you and see if we can get through the ball. Yeah. Well, you know, they all appeal to me because I put all of them out there, but prior to jumping on this call, Mitch and I had a really good initial discussion. And one of the questions that he posed to me, which frankly I think it's an excellent question and I'm not, I haven't given it all the thought that it merits, but the question was, so all of these strategies that you put forth are great, right? But what about the implementation of them? So, it's like, Mitch, that's an excellent question. So, going back to what you asked about where to start, maybe one way to think about it is what are the things that can be implemented in the short term that are going to have the least financial consequences, but the most bang for the buck per se, right? So, number one, I wrote expediting permitting interconnection and regulatory approvals of distributed and utility scale clean energy infrastructure projects. And so, I was very pleased to hear that this is one of the areas where various stakeholders are already looking at and they were looking at it, I would say, even before COVID-19. But now, after this COVID-19, or once we're in the middle of it and once it ends, I think people want to do things more effectively, faster, more efficient, and not necessarily resort to the old ways. So, I understand folks have already started to look at this in greater detail. So, that would be an action that I would put in that area of, you know, low fiscal consequence with potentially a very high upside. There are other things that I think are going to take a bit longer for them to come to fruition and could have, and will have, well, let's dwell on that for a minute though. That's not a pretty good idea. That's an idea for all seasons, all businesses. Hawaii is famous for being stuck in the mud on slow processing of permit applications. Sometimes it takes years, decades, even with big projects, to get the permits. And sometimes, as we know from TMT, the permits don't stick. You thought you had a permit and maybe you didn't have a permit. But I think the PUC is very sensitive to that. Jennifer, what's the commissioner's name? Potter. Jennifer Potter. Jennifer Potter is coming on the show next week. And she, at the legislative briefing in the middle of January, she said that they were, they fully intended to speed up the processing of permitting at the PUC. So, that's all good. So, I think you're going to get your wish on that one. We'll see to what degree. And we'll see how it actually affects things, but I think it's a great idea. Mitch? So, one of the things we discussed was for the permitting in particular, because it can take up to two years to get a permit, is look at third parties to help take up the, what I call grunt work, like the detailed evaluation of designs and doesn't meet the codes and standards so that the permitting people in the actual office that sign off on the permits, they get a brief from the third party to say it meets all your requirements. They can have a quick look to make sure, you know, like a quality analysis, then they stamp it. An example is my hydrogen system on the big island. Like all the equipment was pre-qualified by like a ULS service and it had stickers on it saying this met all the, you know, the codes and standard requirements. So, as soon as the permitting people saw the stickers and knew that it had been done, it was okay. They, you know, they signed off on it. They didn't have to go in and redo all that work. And I think if we had kind of applied kind of third party, I mean, these would be experts like engineers, designers and code of, you know, safety people and they do a professional job and the permitting people in the department have to have confidence that it's being done properly. I mean, it's not just, you know, a half measure just to get it through. It has to be, they have to meet all the requirements, but it takes that huge workload off our under manned and under resourced permitting department so that they can move this stuff quickly through the bureaucracy. And that's just one of the things that you talked about. That's like an essential leap. Yeah. A great leap. Leap. He used the word leap. Essential leap. Thank you. All right. Well, okay, that should only come true soon in all respects. Okay. What's your next point, Veronica? Well, the, I think that there's essentially two stages that we need to grapple with, as I was mentioning, the longer the shorter term things, right now we're dealing with a massive state deficit that we will need to grapple with. So again, emphasizing that in the near term doing as many of these like low or no fiscal impact solutions is, I think, appropriate. As we get out of the situation and where there may be opportunities for the state to start investing or reinvesting again, I would say that it's so important that we continue to remain rooted in key and extremely laudable clean energy and climate policies. Like, you know, the alignment of the Paris Accord, 100% renewable energy and various other, you know, statutory frameworks that have been in place. So I think that in the longer term, there is an opportunity to expand on incentives that could also be beneficial. So one of the things that I talk about in my list of, you know, 10 things is amendments to the Renewable Energy Income Tax Credit. You know, I don't, I think that how hard our solar industry, for example, has been hit by COVID-19 and job loss, etc. I don't think it's the right time to really look at tapering down that tax credit. I think in the future, we ought to be looking at potentially expanding it to include other types of renewable energy technologies, as well as looking at the structure of it. Right now, we're looking at our law provides for a tax credit. In the future, could it provide for a direct refund? Currently, the equity markets are drying up to something that we're seeing, not only in Hawaii, but also globally. And at least at the federal level, there are conversations of trying to make that change for the clean energy tax credits at the federal level. So that's one idea. And of course, I have others, but happy to pause. Well, let's let's break. Let's break that into two parts. You know, the low hanging fruit part, the non, you know, the non, the non fiscal part where you don't want to spend any money. And the other part, we have to spend money. I think the non fiscal part is really, you know, interesting because well, because you don't have to spend any money. But also it's a state of mind. You know, just like your first point about, you know, working on permits more quickly, the non fiscal things in the state legislature, that's also a state of mind. And it's a matter of saying, Hey, you know, business just took a terrible hit. We have got to be business friendly, may I say, because the state has not been, you can quote me on this, you can all quote me on this. The state has not been business friendly. We got to get to be business friendly. We got to resurrect our economy. You know, the loss that we are taking now is not it's not it's not reversible. It's lost. For example, and this goes to the second part of your, you know, state legislature approach is that the state legislature is in deep kimchi. It was not have money before. And it's certainly going to be not enough money now. So you talk about tax credits, you talk about incentives that cost money. You're talking about a, you know, a dry hole here. And, you know, query, what are they going to do? They're not going to get a lot of tax revenues for this period of time of our economic history. They're not going to have any money. They had money before, but they spent it maybe in the wrong places. Instead of incentivizing the economy, they were often young. But now they won't have any money to start with. So how are we going to achieve that in a dry hole? This is a hard one. Have you got any ideas about that? I can't say that I do. I mean, it's a really challenging situation with a lot of moving parts. I mean, I think how deep that whole goes will depend on many things that we're yet to see if they're going to depend on how much, if at all, subsidies or subsidization, I should say, incentives, et cetera, we get from the federal government, how quickly tourism comes back, how quickly other types of businesses in Hawaii are able to bounce back. But yeah, we are going to be more than likely dealing with a very challenging fiscal situation for the foreseeable future. Yeah. So Mitch, are you ready to triple your tax payment to the tax office and help them out? Absolutely not. That's a knee-jerk reaction, but I do have some potential solutions. And we have a solution on the books, actually. The transportation services contracting that Riley Sato champion last year is now a law, which allows the counties and the state now, for example, for transportation to use private monies like a private public partnership where the private company gets a contract to supply, for example, 60 buses in one go, and they own them and they operate them, and all they do is they give the county a monthly bill for doing that. So it comes out of the operating expense rather capital expense. So you're using private money. And Riley has already got several pension funds and people that really want to do it because what they get is a guaranteed return on investment for like 20 years of recurring revenue contracts, and they love that kind of thing because it gives them stability in their funds. And we need to do that with a lot of things we're doing here is looking at the private industry and to fund these things that traditionally we put in a budget to buy three or four buses one year and then the next year we don't have any money for any buses. And then we end up like the big island with, you know, out of a fleet of 65 buses, they only have 10 buses that are operational, maybe more now, but that's the point. And if we'd gone down this other road, we'd have a whole brand new fleet of zero emission buses, which meets a whole lot of our, you know, our policies that we want to implement here in Hawaii. So and reduce costs. I mean, this could be the low cost option. Well, I'd like to trip off that for a minute. You know, so you talk about a central leap, Veronica. You know, we have seen the state squander money on a regular basis, I'm sorry to say. No examples here right now, but there have been cases where the state spent lots of money when it shouldn't have spent that money. And so I think one of the elements to answer my own question here is if you if you if you want to do surgical tax credits for energy and otherwise to restart the economy, then don't throw the money away somewhere else. Be careful about how you spend the money. Make make only spend it on essential things because there are really critical things we have to do going forward. Your thoughts. My thoughts are, I don't have a position on government uses of funds, but I would like to echo what Mitch was talking about in terms of public and private partnerships. I feel that there's huge massive opportunities there. Looking at another non fiscal opportunity there is would be revisiting our state county policies to make sure that they are effective in allowing for these type of P3 opportunities to arise. Aside from buses, I would say I think there's a huge opportunity to benchmark all government facilities and do procurements that take advantage of private sector financing and not doing it in a silo, but doing it in a way that incorporates energy efficiency. Squeezing as much as possible and then the rest supplementing the energy that you need through renewables and also incorporating technologies that are here today but are going to be here in the future like electric vehicles, electric vehicle charging stations that can optimize charging, electric vehicle buses. I know Mitch is also a big fan of hydrogen, right? I feel those are the things that we ought to be looking at as we get out of this whole and also think about how to continue living in Hawaii in a way that is as clean, sustainable, and prosperous as it can be. Wow. Well, I know you had 10 things Veronica by my math, we covered two of them. That leaves eight of them and I hope Mitch will invite you back for another show or more to cover the other eight because I know they're going to be good too. But for now, I think I hate to say this because it was really going good. I think we're out of time, Veronica. I'm sorry. Mitch, can you summarize what we've done today and put a cap on this for the show? Yeah, quickly summarize. I mean, Veronica with essential leap has come up with some really thoughtful ideas on how we can restart our economy and at the same time advance our policies so that we just don't drop all our policies because of this current fiasco that we're going through and maybe we can leverage some of the things. Maybe this is going to, the fact that we're in this extremist situation is getting everybody's attention about how we can be more efficient because we have to be. We can't afford to just sit back. So we'd really love to have Veronica come back. She's got eight more points that we have to talk about. And I've already asked her before the show started if she'd be willing to take that essential leap to join us on Think Pick Hawaii. So thank you so much, Veronica. You have some great points and I look forward to discussing the other eight with you at our next show. Yeah, Veronica, where can we see all your points? Where can we look? Is it on our website somewhere? Yeah, let's bring that slide up. There you are. Let's leave it on so everybody can get it. Okay, all right. Yeah, it's on my website under the blog. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I appreciate it. Thank you, Veronica. Thank you, Mitch. Talk to you guys soon. Aloha.