 Okay, we're back. We're live. It's 4 p.m. on a given Wednesday. And you know what that means here on Think Tech. It means Hawaii, the state of clean energy. We're Mitch Ewen and I delve into what is really going on out there and try to understand the sector and what is happening to it and how well we're doing in reaching our goals, which are coming closer every day. And to help us understand today, we have Megan Fernandez. She is with Pacific Business News. She's a star reporter in energy and we always like to have reporters on the show. May I also say that you know that reporters have a certain mystique. They know more than the average person. They carry around with them the power of the pen. And that's why it's always great to have reporters on the show. Hi, welcome to the show, Megan. Hi, thank you for having me. Absolutely. So Mitch, you know, why don't you frame up the issues for a minute and sort of give us some direction of where we want to go today? Thanks, Jay. I love that opportunity. So what we want to talk about is energy and the energy system here in Hawaii. And one of the big issues that's coming up or great ideas that are coming up is how can we mobilize the energy system to restart the economy and get us moving, get jobs going. And what are the opportunities and then what are the barriers or not even barriers, but maybe just speed bumps that we're inflicting upon ourselves that kind of stops that process from going. So you've delved into it recently. You've attended this meeting with all the great minds in Hawaii that we're talking about energy and the energy system. Certainly yesterday Megan went to a, like actually it was a virtual attendance. She went to this meeting set up and I guess Brian Kealoha was chairing the meeting on Zoom and a lot of heavy weights there. And she wrote a piece that appeared in this morning's PBN about it, which we've looked at. And I think that's a great place to start, Mitch. So Megan, tell us what happened at the meeting. You know, tell us what your story included. Yeah, so it was about the Hawaii Chamber of Commerce having, inviting a lot of local politicians and just local industry experts and just talking about, okay, we know we have the state mandates coming up, you know, but what about, what can we do now in order to kind of help the state recover? How can we use energy as a way to kind of diversify Hawaii's economy? And that really is no straight answer to that from really any of the panelists, because it's not a simple thing. You know, one thing that, you know, the new chief energy officer Scott Glenn was kind of speaking on is right now they're looking at it in kind of three buckets, the short term, the intermediate term and the long term. And we're kind of right now looking at that short term of what can be done in the next few months to a year in order to try to have energy essentially be kind of a player in the economy. And then, like I said, that's no small feat, because especially with nowadays with COVID and everything, people are kind of a little bit more reduced on spending. So how do we get folks to try to keep the industry going with solar installations or, you know, utility skills, solar projects, while still kind of keeping in mind that consumer is kind of a little bit hesitant right now to try to go towards some of that stuff. It's true. You know, I walked the neighborhood here in my neighborhood, and I see people I know, and they go to the other side of the street. It's not because I didn't take a shower. They are afraid to be near anyone else. And I think that that kind of fear pervades our community. And it's rational. It's okay, I understand. But if we have a conversation, it's like a 30 paces. Nobody is a value. I'm hearing that from a lot of the solar installers too. Some projects are being delayed because people don't want them in or near their homes right now or they don't want to interact. So it's really just a tough time for the industry all together right now. But you know what it sounds like, Megan? It sounds like this, you know, if you answer the first question, that is a short-term period, and ask what can you know, it's like John Kennedy question, what can we do for, what can we do to get the solar industry or rather the energy industry to help reopen the economy? What can we do? I don't think it's too profound because, you know, all we really can do, really, is get it to do what we had hoped it was going to be doing before. We were hoping the solar guys would go install, hoping these 16 projects would be built. That's about it, right? And we're not there. We lost the momentum on that. So what can we expect? I don't know if this was discussed at the meeting, but really what I would like to, what I expect, you know, the answer is just do what you were supposed to be doing. See if you can get back on the train. It's nothing remarkable, nothing profound, just do what you were doing. I don't know if anything else came up in that context, but to me, as you say, it's not so easy because people are afraid. Another question is, like, can you get the materials? Like, it's great to have these multi-megawatt arrays that we want to install, but do we have a warehouse full of PV panels here in Hawaii? Maybe not. And then it's a worldwide pandemic. Our suppliers may be coming from China. We don't have that many solar panel manufacturers in the U.S. anymore. Most of that went offshore. So what's the lag time from the time you say pull the whistle and say go? So one of the points that Scott Glenn brought out was looking at workforce development. I mean, that's something that we have control over in that we can get people trained up on some of these new technologies. For example, I'm having interactions with the Hawaii Community College on the Big Island and we're looking at workforce development for people that will be operating various electric transportation, not just hydrogen, although I like it just to be hydrogen, but also ordinary electric vehicles. There's a lot of technology there. If an electric vehicle gets hit and rolls over, they're all electric. They all have these big power cables. You don't want the first responders electrocuting themselves and you certainly don't want to pull a guy out of a car if he's still alive and then electrocute him trying to get him out. So here's an opportunity where we can mobilize a lot of people to go and take these classes and get trained up on the technology in anticipation of the rollout coming forward. From the community college's point of view, they have to develop the courseware and we have to leverage resources and get them rolling on that. So I'll stop talking and let you guys get it. No, but I think that's really a very good point anytime. I mean, sure we should do that, but we could do that and we should do it all the time. We should have the most well trained, sophisticated workers in an energy task force in the world. We can do that. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention and if they can do that now, that's all the better, but we should be doing it anyway. So the question is, okay, let's take that one and work backward. The workforce. Was there any discussion or did you have any thoughts, Megan, about how? Who does that? Go to the community colleges? Was there somebody going to push a button on the community? Was somebody going to fund a program, start a program? Or was that just aspirational? From what Glen was saying, it really needs to be on, it needs to be everyone's responsibility. It needs to be discussions between the state energy office and the universities as well as the chamber of commerce and trade organizations and everyone really has to play a part in kind of building this pipeline. So even though the industry may be struggling now, it can kind of be a pathway in order to when those jobs are available and when people do become more comfortable and things open back up, then we have those positions of, you know, they're able to be filled by people who are trained and qualified and ready to just hit the ground running. So I think it's really not necessarily one person's responsibility. I think everyone kind of plays a part in this. I hope at least a few people step in and do it. You know, I remember a few years ago, Hawaii Energy Policy Forum under the tutelage of Sharon Noriwaki organized a full-day tour going from Union Hall to Union Hall around Honolulu and checking them out on their training programs because they wanted to train solar installers. It was impressive. They offered, they had great equipment there. They had great teachers there and they had careers. I mean, Union was offering careers in this area. I don't know if that still exists, but it seems to me that any conversation around this building task force should include the unions because they're motivated to build members as well as a task force. Anyway, the other, did I cut somebody off? Mitch, did you want to say something? No, I was just going to say that, make the comment that somebody in government has got to be, have the button on his forehead and say, I'm the guy that's going to get this going. And was that in the lay department of labor or whoever, but somebody needs to step up the plate and take the leadership role and pull all these, you know, herd all these cats together, get them in the room and say, okay, what's the plan? What's the first thing we're going to do? And then initiate it. One of the big things I had, I wrote the hydrogen plan for the state of Hawaii, 10-year plan. I knew that I had a chapter on how you're going to implement this. And I said, establish a Hawaii implementation authority. And so that you get all, there's all sorts of competition going on. You get them all in the same room. Like I just said, you hear all the pros and cons. And then one guy with the authority says, okay, this is how we're going to do it. And then he has the authority to implement it and get it going and stopping all the departments from arguing with each other and turf battles and all this stuff and get going guys. And I think that's probably what we need here is a new mentality of a little bit of authority, whether it comes from the government from the governor's office, like that's what they have in California. They have a guy who's in the government governor's office who implements their hydrogen thing for the state. And so if some guy acts up, they can phone the governor's office and get some kind of referee to blow the whistle and make the determination. That's what we need here. We need people to step up the plate, take ownership and ram it through, push it. One of the pieces in your story that was very interesting was the thing about Senator Wakai who complained that there was no plan. And yet, he's a very serious, rather senior and serious senator. He could certainly shepherd a plan through or cause the leadership, Kochi and the like, to create a task force, designate a committee to handle it, whatever, maybe the energy committee in the Senate and make a plan. And I really found it interesting, and I'm sure you did too, that this is a senator who was in a position to do something about claiming there was no plan. But the oblique reference, of course, was that the governor had not made a plan. Can you tell us the discussion around that that took place? Yeah, so there was a question posed to him of just kind of about what his thoughts were. And that kind of discussion from him centered around, I think, just some of the confusion and some of the, in some cases, lack of direct plans or leadership that have happened during COVID of navigator, the miscommunications of different proclamations and how are we, the question hasn't been answered yet, how are we going to eventually get tourism from the mainland and other countries back here? And so, as far as energy is rolling that, he did say that he does want to try to help. But right now, I think that from what he was saying, right now, there's not enough of a government coherence working together on that right now. I think he was saying just, what's next? How do we move forward from here? And like I said, that's not an easy question for anybody to answer really right now, until we have more guidelines and timelines of what we want to do and where we want to go, where we want to be. Yeah, we don't even know what the timeline is. We don't know when we're ready to go back. If you posit going back on the basis of public confidence, where I feel more comfortable talking to my neighbor and having installers come in my house and the like and proceeding with the economy, I don't know when. If you say, well, you know, we're supposed to be in a reopening. I say, you know, that's fine, but I'm talking about me and I'm not taking any chances. This is too dangerous to take chances. It struck me funny. It can make it declare a reopening, but we really don't have control of the disease yet. So when you finish controlling disease, give me a call. Then I'm happy to participate. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. And that goes to allowing the installer in your house and making a deal to have some solar put on. It goes through the question of a contractor who wants to come and do one of those 16 projects or an investor, an entrepreneur, and the labor guys who have to go out in the field and go shoulder to shoulder with other labor guys wearing a mask or not. And they're at a certain risk to do that. And I think you're going to find some reluctance. And the balance, of course, how much do you need to paycheck and how much risk are you willing to undertake? At the end of the day, though, I think you're both right. At the end of the day, it's about leadership. It's about somebody stepping up and saying, okay, this is what we do. We're going to go here now. And I think, you know, what we have, and it's both federal and state and city, is a situation where in the dire straits of the pandemic, you find who you really have. You find the systems you really have. The leadership, what do you call it, culture that you really have. And I think Hawaii has been bogged down with this consensus model for a long time. Hawaii, you know, to go along, don't make it, don't make a. And you know, the problem with that is that when you're in a pandemic and having a crisis in an economic sense, we got to look and see who's leading here. And so far, don't you agree, Mitch? So far, we haven't found out yet. We haven't, you know, it hasn't gotten to the point where somebody had stood up and said, follow me, boys, I'll show you the way. And maybe a conference like this, Megan, is a step in that direction. Definitely. I always think that getting everyone in the room, even if it's a virtual room, that creates a lot of really conducive dialogue. And conducive dialogue is really kind of, that can be the spark that just kind of sets the fire and gets us going to where we need to be, for sure. Well, you know, this has to be taken in juxtaposition to the fact that the Maui Energy Conference, which was set for July, is going to be by Zoom only. And it's going to be a, we had a show about this just a week ago, yeah? It's going to be reduced version with a reduced number of speakers and very efficient, so much so that it's free. Yeah. In the past, it was very expensive. Yeah. And people can, you know, they can watch on Zoom. But I am sad I won't be able to come out to Maui to see it. Me too. Meet all you guys and talk story. So the question is, given this program you had yesterday at the Chamber of Commerce and the Maui thing being skinny down, do we have the momentum to actually see this through? Do we have the momentum to achieve some kind of significant participation in redeveloping the economy in a coordinated fashion with the end of the crisis? I mean, it's great to do it after. It's dangerous to do it before. How do you time yourself? But do we have the momentum? Did you see that? Did you feel, I know it's a very subjective thing, Megan, but what did you feel about the, you know, the interest of vitality of the speakers and other people who were there? Everyone that spoke, and there was quite a few folks there representing each of the counties and stuff like that. You could tell everyone was concerned. Everyone has a passion and they want to see things get better. The trouble is it's just how do we pivot, you know? COVID has brought in a lot of that question in every industry. And energy is no different. You know, how do we pivot from the door-to-door sales or the types of marketing they used to do for solar into a suddenly entirely digital? How do you move anything, you know, and just move forward in a way that you can stay in business, keep your people employed, and yet still kind of think about the future? And so I think that not only the conducive dialogue, but discussion around how that pivot, what that look pivot looks like is really kind of the next steps. And that's kind of what I got from that dialogue as well. I want to tell you about one little theory I've been working on. As a matter of fact, I wrote a little commentary on it recently. It's that we live in an altered state now. An altered state. And more specifically, we leave it in an altered state of time. Time does not have the same meaning to us. You know, it's out of fiddler on the roof, sunrise, sunset. And it's just a sort of, it's a blend of night and day, where we don't have the sense, I mean, it's bad enough we don't have seasons here, but it's just a blend from night and day. You know, the weeks go by, the weekends blend into the weekdays. It's an altered sense of time. And I come out of it, and I think there's probably something here, I come out of it feeling that the COVID, the whole experience, not only for me, but the people I normally engage with is costing me time. It's taking time away because I can't do the things I would normally do. I enjoy my life at home, very nice, but I'm not able to do things that I would do. So the forward motion for my time is slow down. And I feel that, you know, in my remaining years, there's a hole here, there's a hole in the boat, and my time is draining out the bottom. Now you can say, oh, that's very personal, Fidel. But in fact, I think that exists, whether you like it or not, for business also, because business initiatives have a hole in the boat too. It's not just that you can't do anything, but the time is going by. And it's enveloping you, and it's stopping you, and it's got to have not only a psychological effect, but a sort of a business social effect on people involved. What do you think about my crazy theory? Well, I think you should get busy on the internet and do more research, Jay, and not waste your time just lounging around every morning. I want to make a comment about the energy side though. So, you know, I've been locked up here for a long time in County Way Bay, but, you know, HECO was still out reinstalling telephone poles and new wires and building up the resilience, because one of the advantages is there's not a lot of people on the road right now. So they can lay out telephone poles on the roads, you can fix the roads, you can do some of this infrastructure improvement without having to stop every five minutes. So you might be able to get the job done in one day where if you're like, business is normal, maybe it would take a week, because, you know, every time a car comes by, they got to stop work, move the poles, move the trucks, let this one car go by. And that's all, you know, a waste of time. So there's, you got to look at the situation and say, well, what can I do now? I think the city and the county and the state, Department of Transportation, they're looking at that. They're going around making major repairs to roads and parking lots and all this kind of stuff. So that's things we can be doing and keeps people employed and also keeps the wheels moving here. So, you know, the bus drivers are still out there driving the buses and, you know, the repairmen are still out there doing their thing. I mean, we still have construction guys coming here where I live right now. And if you're getting on with things, I find actually like having an hour and a half extra time, not sitting on the road, competing is a really good thing. Definitely a benefit, yeah. Your industry, Megan, how are you finding it getting out? I mean, you must spend a lot of time in front of your computer anyway, and you can do interviews by Zoom or whatever to get that more personal touch. How are you finding it? It's been a challenge. While I also enjoy my commute time to my couch, you know, it's been difficult some days, you know, because I'm very much the type of reporter that enjoys going out, meeting people face to face, talking story over coffee and stuff like that. And we can't do that anymore. You know, our face to face interviews and stuff have been very limited. So a lot of it is doing just this right now. It's talking over Zoom or it's phone calls. And, you know, so I do miss that kind of human touch to it of being able to meet in person. But, you know, and also our print days are now all virtual, whereas we used to, you know, print out the copy of the newspaper and, you know, make hard marks on it. We can't do that. You know, we're all separated. So it's been a little bit of a learning curve. But I think that could be said for all industries, you know, just in, I cover many beats, energy is just one of them. But I kind of hear that all around is, you know, everything essentially business as usual has paused since mid-March. And we're still in that pause, even though retail and malls and restaurants are still they're open not to the same capacity. But I do agree with you, things do feel kind of still paused until we do get back to that or whatever the new normal is, as people say. But it's presented its challenges. Yeah, well, you know, reports of, you know, economic activity are anecdotal. You know, the only thing that really counts is the state product and all that. And let's see how many people are working. Let's see how much money is being made and generated. And I suppose you could ask how many tourists are coming, going, being, being asked to leave, as the case may be. Slavver for X days until whatever you like. But you know, one thing about it is that we're all involved in discovering new techniques. And the Megan talks about being a reporter. And I want to ask one question about that. You know, so life is different. And it was different for think tech, I can tell you where we're kissing cousins in, you know, in terms of media. So when you, when you do it differently, when you spend your time on Zoom and on the phone and email instead of in person, where, you know, you don't, you don't, what is it, see the sweat of their brow, and, you know, all that and, you know, sort of get a credibility read by being close to them when they talk to you. So other systems, you're developing other systems. And it seems to me that some of these systems are more efficient, they have to be, then what was going on before. So the job of being a reporter, especially in a business, you know, a business area, is not only different, but it's a discovery. And it's promising. And then if I ask you at the end of this crisis, who knows when that will be, you want to go back to the way it was way back when we want to continue to do some of these things now. I suspect you're going to tell me, no, no, I, I learned how to do it. I want to keep on doing it this way. Am I right? Yeah, I mean, there have been some things where, like I said, it's challenges, but also it's, it's nice kind of pros as well, you know, with people working remotely and stuff like that. A lot of people have more time to talk. So they rather have a quick phone call or Zoom meeting rather than, you know, scheduling the time for us to meet somewhere or for, you know, meet a drive out to them and stuff like that. So it's a time saver in that aspect of I don't have a commute and I don't have to commute out to interviews. But I think it's, it is interesting how I think it's, it's open more doors in the sense of people are able to make more time because they have more time in their day to, you know, and I've heard that even from some of the, you know, local accelerators too, who bring in experts kind of like this and will resume to mentor as you see people are a lot more able to kind of carve out that time nowadays. You know, this reminds me of a show we did yesterday with Howard Wigg. You guys know Howard Wigg, right? D-Bed, the code green guy who deals with the building codes and he's devoted to energy. And so he's organized a webinar from a guy in New York City who is into ultraviolet light and as a way to deal with the virus, to kill the virus, you know, and he put the word out and a lot of people are coming to this particular webinar. It's really local, except that the guest who is probably getting an honorarium, an honorarium, you know, in the process, doesn't have to come here. And, you know, that's sort of like proof of concept. I mean, when, for example, they want to do a Maui Energy Conference or any energy conference involving an expert in New York City, they had to come here. And maybe he doesn't want to come here. And you pay him for honorarium because he's a big name. But then you have him on a show just like this. So my question to you, Megan, is, you know, do you see that the energy sector going through the same process that you've been going through, where they learn about efficiencies in, you know, in conducting business in doing energy, doing the technology of energy. And when we come out the other end of this pipeline, we're actually in better shape because we have new systems on how to conduct ourselves and do business. I think so. You know, in through my reporting, I've noticed a lot of different pivots, both in energy and tech, because a lot of times they're kind of correlated. And, you know, you see tech companies that may double in energy and tech, now moving towards helping COVID testing, helping make ventilators. So they've pivoted kind of now in the moment to help out and to step up. But I think really, like I mentioned earlier, solar companies are having to change how they market the availability to how they install. Maybe they wear more, you know, PPE and, you know, stuff like that. So I think there is a pivot, there's a shift. And, you know, each company is going to decide how they do that themselves. But I feel it kind of industry-wide right now. Everyone's kind of figuring out their niche and how they can shift in that niche to be successful. And I know the PPP loans, a lot of solar companies did apply for those and some did get it. So, you know, there's definitely been how do we get the funding, how do we keep our people employed, and how do we try to promote that solar is important right now, that solar has a role. So I really kind of feel that all around. Yeah. Well, going forward, who knows where we're going to be. You know, the other thing that's changing is journalism itself. And I say this, it's not just COVID. It's the last couple, three years, you know, where before, and I read the New York Times as much as I can in Washington Post, where before they would report the news, and it would be very matter of fact, and their opinions were limited. Now there's just as much opinion as there is news. And I guess they feel that these are the times that where people want that, and that journalism requires it, because, you know, they have the credibility and people want to know what they think about these things. So for example, we're talking today about the need for a state plan. We're talking today about the, you know, the reluctance of the public to engage in solar projects and other project, community solar, whatever it might be. And that's the fact. And that's what went on at this conference yesterday. But, you know, what about opinions? Have you thought about this? Have you done this? What about opinions about, hey, where is the state plan? Or Mitch's question, you know, who puts it out? Who steps forward on this? Who becomes the leader? We're waiting. You know, this kind of, it's not really fact, it's opinion, it's even trying to nudge people, nudge them ahead, you know, and when it's obvious that they're not moving ahead. What about that in Hawaii, in, you know, your beat, in the dichotomy between fact reporting, which is always useful, and opinion reporting, which seems to be more useful now somehow, or anything? Yeah, so I only strictly do fact reporting. My editor, Cam, he does have a weekly column, a poop loop ladder, where he's able to kind of let his thoughts and opinions out. But for my purposes as a reporter, I just stick to the facts, because that's, that's all I care about at the end of the day is what are the hard facts? Because, you know, you mentioned opinion pieces, can sometimes push folks or, you know, push folks to get something done. Fact pieces can do that just as well too, you know. Too shay, too shay. You know, you put out a nice hard-written research article that tells it like it is, tells the facts, tells both sides. That could get just as much attention as opinion, you know. So that's kind of more what I believe in, or my niche, so to say. It's just really getting those facts and numbers out there, because that's also what people want to know at the end of the day too, is, all right, well, someone's in trouble, but what are the numbers? What's the proof? You know, because you say something, just because I say it as an opinion doesn't mean it's true, or doesn't mean I have something to back it up. Thank you for that. That's really great. I'm so glad we had this conversation. So, Mitch, you're smiling. Do you realize that it's about time to summarize where we are and where we've gone and where we might go in the future? Mitch is very good at this. You'll see. You did, Mitch. I have people talking. I have my smoke alarm that's been going off all afternoon, so it's like it's been a three-ring circus here. But anyway, to sum up, we started off talking about the energy system and what we could be doing to get it going again and also be a little bit innovative. And from that we branched off into basically how business is actually operating. And we talked about how reporters, you know, how their life has changed and how they, you know, are challenged or have different challenges now to get the facts and get out there and get the story. And so that was a very interesting conversation. And thank you very much, Megan, for coming on and illuminating us on these things. And I hope you got some facts out of this, although it was all opinion, basically. So that I'm going to carry on with Jay's advice to me is to make the closing fast. Okay. Thank you very much, Megan. It was great. Thank you, Megan. Megan for Nina's opinion. Thank you. Thank you. Until next time.