 What are we doing here, raising public awareness on clean energy, that's what we're doing. And that voice to my left is Maria Tome, she's the host and guest and guest and host of Hawaii, the state of clean energy every Wednesday. Okay, and then Kurt Sui from the Hawaiian Electric, and he's a public relations communications person. What's your title? Community relations. Got it. Okay. And we're going to talk today about raising public awareness in the community about energy. Because, you know, Maria and I have been having this ongoing kind of movable feast of a discussion about who is the leader, who are the leaders in clean energy, but today because you're here, Kurt, we want to talk about is the public really aware of what's going on in clean energy and, you know, what you're doing, what needs to be done, what other people are doing to raise awareness in the public sphere about what's happening. The public is so fickle, and they forget immediately, and they sometimes amaze you with how little they know. We can stand in the street and ask questions. I'm telling you, you would be amazed and disappointed. I'm telling you, okay, did I call that right, how do you feel about the subject, Maria? Yeah, that's good. Can you tell us some clean, new tech? Yeah, oh yeah. We're going to start with that. Who's going to tell us about the, what do you call this thing? It's a vertiglow, vertiglow gizmo. I'm really excited, Riga. We have some new technology that we're bringing into Hawaii that's going to help us a lot, and I think it's going to help the community when we're working in residential areas. So typically, when we need to do night work and we need to perform emergency repairs, we bring out these light towers. This would be when you don't have regular power in that location. Correct, correct. And where it's dark, and you need light to work. And the nature of utility work is very serious, so we want to make sure that our crews and the public that are around where we're working, our very, our safest can be. That's why visibility is key. And so traditionally, I think most construction companies, utilities, will use diesel powered generators to power these bright lights that help us to work at night. And we have recently come across new technology that incorporates solar technology, and also the same hybrid technology that the cars use. And so what this allows us to do is to bring in these lights, charge them up with solar energy, and it works off a 24 volt battery, and we're able to bring that into the community where we're working. And basically, that's it right there. And basically power it up without running any of the generators. So it's silent and works similar, once it's fully charged, very similar to a flashlight. And we're able to get the work that we need done. And there isn't that ambient noise that they're going to be hearing from the generator running. And there's so many efficiencies that we're achieving by using this. Not only are we not using fuel, but we're also minimizing the impacts on the community. The motors of these units don't need to be maintained, because we're not running them constantly like a typical generator. So I mean, how it would work is it would run a full eight hours of light. And if the charge starts running low, the battery kick, I mean, the generator, the smaller generator will kick on and start to recharge the battery. In two hours, the battery will be fully charged. Fully charged. Pretty efficient. Wow. And you can now, if it's a multiple day kind of experience where you deliver it out, say, in the nighttime, it's going to stay there until the following day. During the day that follows, I mean, in the middle, you can have it charged. It'll be completely charged by solar power, and that'll be good till the second night or all night long. Absolutely, Jada. That's a perfect explanation of what could happen and you know what. As long as there's sunlight, it'll be able to recharge that battery and we're ready to go again. This makes it very efficient for you. Absolutely. So the cost savings on fuel, really, these units, just similar to EVs, you know, it's taking advantage of the technology and leveraging that towards the operation. And you know, it's consistent with the whole move, don't you think, to clean energy through solar panels. Absolutely. It's part of our collective initiative moving forward. It's not looking back. It's looking forward. It's good. And the technology keeps getting more and more efficient. So that's something that we're really excited about at Juan Electric, is we're always trying to keep an eye out for the latest technology, latest innovations, and to try and bring that here, where we have a lot of opportunity because of the challenges we're faced with with EV saturation and all the other issues. You know what else this would be very good, just strikes me, you know, one of these days we're going to have an extreme storm, and we're going to need power. I mean, light. We're going to need light, really important. And these guys could provide that, even if the power down. The question is, how many do you have? Are you in the pilot program now, or are you in the full two boogie program? We are currently in the testing stage. So this is relatively new technology that actually started in the Netherlands. So it wasn't easy to get these units here. They're made in the Netherlands? Correct. Vertigo is a Dutch company? Correct. And so they recently opened up a U.S. office in Florida. And so that gave us the opportunity to begin the purchase. But again, to your point, Jay, it is a pilot in the sense where we've only purchased four units. We want to test how they work. But we have already used them for some night work at our base yards. And we found them to be very efficient and to work very well. And it is really, it's a really new and neat technology. So our folks are having a good time working with this new equipment as well. So let's talk about moving them around for a moment. So they fold from the picture. We see the picture again that you said they were 24 feet high. Correct. So they can, yeah, they go up to 24 feet high. But when we fold them up, it's relatively compact to the size of that trailer unit you see there. It is on the heavier side. It's about 2100 pounds. And so it needs to be told with a truck. But once stationed and secured with all the proper footings, then we're able to get that light tower to go up as high as 24 feet. And it's directional lighting. So we can control exactly where the light shines or how wide it is. Exactly. So six LED bulbs, energy efficient. And that's the reason, too, that the batteries are able to power it for a full eight hours. You know, this would be great in making movies at night, I tell you. True. Or night ballgames for that matter. Yeah, yeah. Still haven't mentioned that. So when you take that 24 foot, you know, mass down, is it a telescopic change or you have to fold it up? So it'll come down similar to how you mentioned, Jay. The good thing is that the material is non-corrosive, which is critical here in Hawaii with the environment they were faced with. So that was another big reason why we wanted to make the early investment in this technology. It was because it's going to last. And I saw the anchors on the side of the picture there. So the anchors come up, the mass comes down, and you have to have a separate trailer or are there wheels on this thing? So there are wheels on it. We just hook it up to a hitch to the truck and then we're ready to go. So very mobile. Yeah, that's really important. Absolutely. So you need a really big truck or your standard utility truck will do it. Yup, standard utility truck will do just fine. I'm really impressed. Well, I hope this works out in the sense that you find good use for it and that it can fit within your systems. And you'll have the benefits that you imagined from it. Absolutely. We're very excited about it as well. Yeah. So you said you're the first ones in Hawaii to be demonstrating this? Yes. Are the other folks who do night work interested in seeing it? Are you going to? I hope so. And that's why we appreciate you allowing us to share this. I think that I credit our folks for always keeping an eye out for this technology and our hope is to let others know that it's out there and that technology is getting better, the costs are coming down. And so really, and it's your point, you're perfectly in alignment with where we're going. Yeah. Well, theoretically, just thinking ahead, theoretically, I don't know the exact price of a given year. And that's probably going to change depending on how many you wind up buying. But theoretically, if you wanted to light up a highway, you have to put down cable generally under the street and dig it up. Maybe there are permits involved. There's a lot of labor involved. A lot of material involved, the cable. Maybe transformers, who knows what, to light up all those street lights. But if this is high enough, and I think 24 feet would be high enough, and you could adapt the way the light scopes on things, you can make a street light out of it. Or maybe you get a variation on the theme. You can make it into a regular street light. Now the street light would go 24 by 7, essentially forever and ever, subject to maintenance, of course. But you could light a whole highway with these things and really never have to spend the money necessary to lay the cable and deliver the power underground. You would just be using the cells. And maybe sometimes, depending on the season, you would need some fuel for the motor. But generally speaking, you might probably not need any fuel for the motor. It would run overnight. And that would be, I think, depending on the exact pricing, that would be cheaper to light a highway. But if you can get a lot of light out of this, you wouldn't have to put them that close together. You could shine it between the poles. You could light a whole stretch of highway with only fewer poles. All right? I mean, have you looked into this? Also, the technology continues to evolve, Jay. And I think that's a good point, too, with costs being weighed into the equation as well. I think that as technology develops and becomes more efficient and the costs come down, I think that starts to become more of a reality. So absolutely, I think that there are opportunities there with this technology. It is relatively new. And we're looking forward to testing it as well. But absolutely, I think that with the way things are going, that, again, technology being evolving, I think there are opportunities like that. And the good news also is that those guys who come around and steal a cup of wire, they wouldn't be able to steal any cup of wire. Yeah. Hopefully, they wouldn't steal the whole unit. You have to anchor it into the ground really solid. OK? You want more on the subject? Well, yeah, so I was just wondering, is there an association of folks who, construction workers who are working in these types of situations that you guys have a conference or something where the folks who sold this to you are going to come and say, hey, we're selling this in Hawaii and thinking that's a good question. We haven't reached that point in the conversation just yet. But absolutely, I think we would be happy to help get the word out as it helps validate once we're able to get some usage under our belt and to share the efficiencies that we're able to achieve with this new equipment. Yeah. Can we come and see one sometime? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. In your yard on Ward Avenue? Absolutely. We'd love to show it to you. Would it fit in the elevator here? No. I'm just kidding. Yeah, could we have one? One for Maria's house, one for mine. We need some help lifting it and towing it over. I don't have a truck that big. OK, we'll take a short break if you guys don't mind. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about other things, namely, raising community awareness about the energy initiatives in our state. That's Kurt Sui, Maria Tome, and we'll be back in one minute. You'll see, I promise. Aloha. I'm Gwen Harris, the host here at Think Tech Hawaii, a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii. We provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii. We are a Hawaii nonprofit that depends on the generosity of the supporters to keep on going. We'd be grateful if you go to thinktechhawaii.com and make a donation to support us now. Thanks so much. Aloha and mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch for our mission of empowerment. We aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, maraming, salamat po, mabuhay, and aloha. OK, I told you, it came true. We came back, Rio Tomei, Kertzui, Hawaiian Electric. And we're going to talk now about raising public awareness in energy matters in Hawaii. And there's a fatigue factor. I mean, there was a time back in the odd years, I call them, where everybody was excited, and everybody stalling solar on their rooftops. But fatigue sets it. There was an energetic factor in- Yeah, you mean the panic of 06, 06 to 08, when the energy prices dropped? Right, that too. So people get fatigued, and maybe they get less interested. They move on to other issues. The public is a fickle thing. And query, with the way energy is moving, all the developments at Hawaiian Electric, KIUC, elsewhere, in terms of grid and inverters, and all kinds of new technologies for communication and whatnot. The public may not know about this. So the first question I ask you, Maria, is the public sufficiently informed? You know, the public is interested in the things that most directly impact them. And they're concerned about the decisions effect on the future. So the people who are most interested can get the information that they want. Right. But there's a lot of misinformation out there. So I don't think it's a shortage of information as much as it is, who can I believe? And you've got a lot of folks having opinions on things. And how do you sort through that? What's relevant to us here in Hawaii were different from other places in some ways? So there's a lot of information. There's a certain amount of fatigue. There's interest. But if someone is interested enough to come to an energy table and ask people for information, I think that's a great opportunity to answer their questions. And then they may have follow-on questions. And then they get more interested. So the public has the ability to get the information. They have interest, especially when it comes to the cost or risk or climate change types of issues. So I think the value of what folks who go out into the community is to be a source that actually has the information relevant to Hawaii, can answer the questions, and can also take the interest that's expressed and go back to the company and say, hey, guys, people want X, Y, and Z. So my question for him is, and you said something before that really resonates with me is that you want credible information. And in a marketplace where there are competitors, such as the solar installers, for example, they may have a different view of things, one to the other. They're obviously interested in selling installation. You may not get the same story from each one of them. You may not get fully informed. You may have questions left over that you're not confident you got the answer right. So where can you go? Well, Maria and I have this conversation like every week. So what, can you go to the PUC? No, there's no telephone at the PUC you can ask. Answer these questions. No, we have. Yeah, sure. There are. It's not a regular thing. Yeah, it's a different question of different kind of answer. It's a regulated utility focus, as opposed to more generic questions. But the interface is the best interface is the utility itself. We know about all these other organizations in the state that are involved in the energy landscape for sure. But it's not just the utility, sorry. OK, who else? Well, everybody on our list of who does what in energy. You going to call them? How do you know who to call? Yeah. The natural call is to the utility, isn't it? So the question is, can I call you, Kurt? Can I call you? Absolutely. What's the number? We have several. It depends on the types of questions you have. OK. With, you know, you can always call the main customer service line. And then they'll be happy to point you in the right education and consumer affairs department. My department is in community relations. We also have a government relations office. So a lot of, to both of your points, I do agree wholeheartedly that there's an interest now for more information and to get some clarity on all the different things that people are hearing. We're happy to provide that information. And so we do that through a number of venues. I think I mentioned some, you know, when we try to go out and participate in events, whether it's clean energy events, or even we're really focused on resilience and how that relates to energy. And we're trying to partner with a lot of emergency management agencies and elected officials when they host their preparedness fairs. We want to be a part of that conversation. And I'm sure you've seen the handbook that we've collaborated on with our partners and putting together to get people ready for hurricane season and all the other associated events, right? And so that's an important part of the conversation as well. There's not only clean energy and sustainability, but also resilience and preparedness. But I do think that there are, I think interest is growing. People want to be part of the conversation and whether it's rooftop solar, electric vehicles, lots of questions and opportunities. And as we're rolling out new programs within the company, that's a perfect opportunity to meet up with that interest and to talk story and to get to share information. Yeah, talk story is an operative term. When I was a kid growing up in New York, they had a telephone line. You could call it the New York Times. I think they called it the New York Times Information Service. And there was some guy with a green eye shade in the back, in the stacks, in the catacombs of the New York Times. And he could answer any question. And people called him about everything. When school, we didn't know something. It was no web, trust me. We would call this guy or this group of guys and they would always answer our question. It was amazing. It was like a miracle, okay? So last week, my wife noticed that Frank Bruni, who's a regular contributor to the op-ed page of the New York Times on Sunday, it wasn't there. She became troubled by that. So she called the New York Times. Is it the same number? The same number as before? Well, in my day, it was lack of one or four or 1,000. That's for a man, we were talking 50, 55 years ago. Okay, so she called them. Lack of one or four or 1,000. Try that today. Anyway, she tried to find out what happened to Frank Bruni. No soap. Now, when I was a kid, they made points with me because I could call them. Were they right though? When she called them, she couldn't find out. And so, you know, that they didn't make points with her. So really, I'm reinforcing your point, Kurt, that if you have somebody you can call, the public loves that. And it's much more than just a Q&A. It's the accessibility of the information, access to. And so you get so much out of that as a company, and we as a community get so much out of that, having somebody on the other end of the phone. Even if they say, I have to get back to you, still. It's a tremendous thing. So you have a website too, right? Absolutely. And how robust is the website in terms of answering questions? The website itself is very robust. It's almost to a point where it might be challenging to find exactly what you're looking for. So that's why I encourage folks to contact us and then we can help maybe steer or point people in the right direction. And we're really excited about new social media and the tools like our New Hawaiian Electric web app where people can report outages. And it's another means of communication, just like anything else. And social media is one way to follow and to stay abreast of all the recent updates that are happening too. We try to keep our customers and everyone who's interested up to date with the latest things that are rolling out, the status of applications that are going to impact customers. Grid modernization is a big issue. Renewable energy projects. So all of those things, there's a lot of things happening and you are all well aware. And that's something that I think to Maria's point, it's challenging for a lot of people in Hawaii with busy, busy lifestyles to kind of get the full picture. So a lot of times, you know what your question, Jay, about the website, we try and put as much information on there as we can, but a lot of times people's interests may be specific to whether it be EVs or rooftop solar or just programs. And so, or questions about their bill even. And those are the types of questions that, yeah, you can absolutely call us and we'll be happy to answer. To interface. Absolutely. Now what about push, what about push type information? We've talked about pull information here for a minute. What about push? Something happens. I mean, for example, you know, the, wait. Ready to grow? Ready to grow? Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very low. You know, that's new information. It's a new thing. It's a new initiative, a whole new set of possibilities. So today we're pushing that. We're sending that out. Yes. How else do you send information, send news, send events, newsletter type communication through the public, raise their awareness? So really multiple venues. So we appreciate venues like Think Tech that help us get the word out. You know, we send out news releases and take advantage of the media that's interested. And also we push information out through our social media pages. So we have a very active Twitter and Instagram and Facebook page where we engage with customers on those pages as well. Our online team does a really good job of replying and responding to customers with information they're seeking. We also go out into the neighborhood boards and we have conversations there. Those are more specific to projects and initiatives that impact communities specifically. And, you know, so, and we take advantage of whether it's community meetings or community events that are willing to have us there, whether it's a booth or just sharing information. And we try to make it applicable to people in the community who, you know, whatever type of event they're attending, try to make it fit their level of interest. So those are all the means of trying to push information out there. And it's a lot. So there's a lot of thought that goes into that and deciding, you know, what do we want to share? And we try and engage what people would be most interested in. Do you track the types of questions that people are asking? Yes, absolutely. And then develop responses and... So we actually have a very good communications team that does just that. So as we're hearing things, whether it's at community meetings or even with our customer service, calls that are coming in about any particular topic, that's a trigger to activate us. Maybe we need to develop something, whether it's a webpage or a written piece of communication. You know, a lot of us get those inserts in our bill, the hokui, and then that contains a lot of useful information as well. I know I'm guilty myself sometimes of getting the mail and not reading everything as carefully as I should, but you know, there's a lot of good information in there. And even for the traditionalists who look forward to our recipes, that's also a piece that's built in in there as well. Of course. What else? So what are some of the things recently that people have been asking about? Well, rooftop solar continues to be... You know, we're getting a lot of calls about... Particularly a lot of projects. You know, when people see things in their community, they want to know what's going on. And more recently, you know, we have... The renewable request for proposals. So we have developers now going into communities. And so people have questions about, you know, what's happening and why. And you know, so those are the types of questions that we receive. And even at the neighborhood board level, whenever they see trucks in the neighborhood, sometimes they'll call, wait, what's going on? You know, what's my electric doing in my neighborhood? And so... The guys who run the trucks are perfectly happy to answer your questions too, aren't they? I do ask them questions. They do great work. And so that's the part where we really want to share that information. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, with regards to resilience and sustainability. All of these initiatives are really going towards those purposes where we're trying to harden the grid, make the grid more reliable, and that which leads to better service for all of us who use energy. And you know, we're also working towards the 100% renewable goal in trying to integrate more renewable energy. And so there's a lot of activity and complexities that Maria is well aware of with as well as UJ. And so, you know, for the ones, for anyone who's interested, we're more than happy to share that information. And sometimes it's a little lengthier conversations. And so, you know, that's where the website will come in and we can provide a little bit more of the specifics. So what's your favorite channel on all this? You have many things working. What's the one you like best, the one that you feel has the greatest leverage in, you know, reach? Social media, for example. That's my favorite personally, because I'm able to, when I have, there's time, you know, going through and seeing what's the latest. And our company does a really good job of keeping us updated through internal communications as well. So it's really good to see the consistencies and the information we're receiving. But in terms of like, you know, my family, I encourage them to sign up for our horn electric app, the mobile application. I think that is a really efficient way of receiving information because you control what you receive. You can sign up for the types of push alerts that you wanna receive, you know, whether it's regards to outages or construction work that might be resulting in traffic impacts. Those are all things that we have at our fingertips. And for me personally, that's actually my favorite is actually our mobile application. I'll tell you my favorite. My favorite has a lot to do with Ellison Onizuka, the Boy Scouts. Every year, and this is two weeks ago, the Boy Scouts have an Ellison Onizuka day at HIC. And we go down there every year with our cameras and we take pictures and we walk through it. Every year we go down there, we say, hmm, horn electric can have the same huge number of people again, you know, giving out yellow hats. I have one. I have one. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Right here in the studio. Yellow horn electric hats. So we went there a couple of weeks ago and oh no, they had twice as many people as they had last year. And not only have all these people, you know, volunteering and helping the kids with the games and whatnot, they also had an exhibition table with all these things where, you know, they were showing people and answering questions. So, and a lot of people were stopping by and getting hats, by the way. Oh, wonderful. It was really, it was really fabulous. So I also, you know, I think that's, I think that that kind of event is very valuable. You wanted to make a closing remark now that we're out of time? We're out of time. Oh, track. Well, I just want to say that, you know, we, he very often has debates, because we've got this, who just wanted energy and to what extent is the public a really important part of the discussion. You know, they're extremely important. Absolutely. I mean, we are the ones for whom the grid exists. So I thank you for what you're doing and getting the word out and being accessible, because people very often are interested, sometimes upset, sometimes excited about the opportunities or the challenges. And to be able to send an email or a tweet or pick up the phone and call someone is extremely important. So thank you very much for that. Oh, thank you. And thanks for being here. Of course. Happy to be here. We know you can answer any of our questions. So we're going to close the show now, Kurt. And after that, Maria and I have several questions we're going to ask you. Oh, sure. Yeah, where are you? We're in your public, OK. Thank you, Kurt. Thank you very much. Maria Tomei, thank you so much, you guys. Thank you for watching. We'll be back next week on Hawaii, the state of clean energy. You'll see.