 One blast off, four o'clock rock, here on Think Tech. Hawaii is a state of clean energy every Wednesday from now until eternity. That's what we want to keep on doing this. We got to follow the action, not only here but everywhere. We got to know what's going on in energy. So our guest today, to my left, Olan K. Aloha Lakan. Aloha Jay, using my middle name. We're using middle name today. This is going to be interesting. Kanu Hawaii and what's the other company? Shifted Energy. Shifted Energy, fabulous. Got it. Okay, and then we have Derek Takeshi Sonoda. That's right, buddy. Okay, he's representing the government today. Welcome, man. Thought it was going to be hilarious. And our special guest from Hawaii Energy is Ramsey Kenoa Brown. You got it. All right. You take the teller now. All right. I'll drive. Thank you for having all of us. Thank you for having Hawaii Energy for your Nagawa moment today. I wanted to talk about renters, specifically because 50% of our families in the islands rent their homes and don't own them. And then there's a particular twist with renters is whether or not they pay their own electric bill or it's kind of covered in their rent. And so sometimes there's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality that goes along with renters and wanting to conserve energy when they don't even see the repercussions of it on their electric bill. So we made a little video that we wanted to show you here today highlighting part of our 10-minute video about how renters specifically can save energy. We have a plug in there for one of our multifamily site visits where we go in and we help to retrofit with energy efficient shower heads and energy efficient lighting in these apartment buildings as well. So take a look at it. This is just a short part of our video. A lot of questions on what can I do as a renter to save energy? And just as importantly, is it even worth it? So today we have a news segment called Ask the Experts and since we're talking about renters today we decided to bring in our resident apartment expert, Bob the Healing. Bob, tell us how a renter family can save on their electric bill. Well one of the things that I found out very quickly is that their clothes washing habits in terms of washing clothes and a lot of them use hot water still to go ahead and wash their clothes and that's not necessary because today's laundry detergents they're designed for cold water wash. It just occurred to me that these tips can also be used for homeowners as well. You don't have to be a renter. So a lot of the unique tips that Bob gave us are going to be on our website and more information. So check us out and you can download these tips at hawaiienergy.com slash energize. Very nice. Okay we're back for a while. So Ramsey what was that? Explain what happened there. So we got to interview one of our residential experts, Bob the Healing on part of those multifamily and even in-home what you can do tips and tricks. He talked about how you can save on your laundry machine or washing machine even just simply as washing with cold water because a lot of these detergents are made for high efficient loads that are cold water nowadays so you can move away from using hot water even which way your ceiling fan should circulate. And if you want to know one of the most efficient ways to draw in the cool island breeze and keep the hot air toward the ceiling check out our video so that you can learn which way you want your ceiling fan to rotate and how to switch it. Okay we have questions from the jury now. Oh and what kind of cross examination do you want to put to this witness? I want to see the rest of the video so how do I know he's excited. Yeah where do we go? Great question. HawaiiEnergy.com. Okay. And it's live now. And it's live and it'll be in the top right of the page. Can't miss it. And I saw some gadgets. Are those gadgets for sale? Are they part of a kit? We do have a kit online. It's a $10 kit and you can get way more than $10 worth of equipment. There are smart strip that you can learn more about LED lights and I believe showerhead fixtures as well for low flow showerheads. Alright Derek how about you? Anybody can go and get them? Anybody. As long as you pay an electric bill here under Hiko, Miko or Helco you can definitely apply and put in your account number and fill out some basic information or address so we can mail you the kit. Oh you mail it? We mail it. Oh I thought we had to pick it up. No it comes to your doorstep. Oh for $10? You'll probably forget and then you'll get this gift in the middle of the spring time and you'll save energy right away. And what are shipping and handling costs? No cost. No cost. $399. Very nice. Both pretend to be a special gift. It's a good deal. Well thank you Ramsey. Thank you Ramsey. Ramsey Kanoa Brown. Letting me join you. Wonderful. Kanoa Kanoa. Okay thank you very much. We're going to take a short break. We're going to come back. We're going to talk about cybersecurity and energy. Thank you Ramsey. Thank you Marvin and you guys are doing great. Thank you Jay. Aloha my name is Joe Kent and I'm the Vice President of Research at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. The Grassroot Institute is a public policy think tank and we try to build a better economy in Hawaii and you can see us on the TV show Ehana Kako on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcasting Network every Monday at two o'clock. We'll see you there and let's build a better Hawaii together. Aloha. Hello and Aloha my name is Raya Salter and I am your host for Power Up Hawaii where Hawaii comes together to talk about a clean and renewable energy future. I'm so excited to be here with you to talk about some of the most important energy issues of our day and most importantly who can we bring together? Energy engineers, artists, musicians, accountants, advocates, young people. Who can we bring together to talk about how we can make this path together by walking and reach 100% renewable energy? Please join me Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for Power Up Hawaii. Aloha I am Reg Baker and I am the host of Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 in the Think Tech studios in downtown Alululu. We highlight successful stories about businesses and individuals and learn their secrets to success. I hope you can join us on our next show on Thursday at 2 o'clock. Until then, Aloha. Okay we're back we're live with the second part of our show today Hawaii the state of clean energy talking about cyber security and energy here in Hawaii with Olin Lagann make that Olin K. Aloha Lagann okay and Derek Sonoda make that Derek Takeshi Sonoda great to have you guys here so let's identify the problem okay it's been the news as you mentioned Derek we've seen a lot of hacking lately we've seen questions about security cyber security everywhere in the world there's a you know a whole international geopolitical industry growing up of people who just love to you know tamper with our systems and that would include energy wouldn't it so what's the risk and what's the status and tell us everything okay even the classified part all right classified so we've installed about 2,000 devices considered smart energy devices across the state here in Hawaii and so we have some experience with both the security side and stuff so I think there's really two kinds of risk Jay one is a risk that someone can get this information from your smart energy devices from its source like if it's a smart meter or a smart thermostat and I think that risk is really low like for them to hack into these proprietary radio frequencies and intercept them unencrypt them and there's probably you know hundreds of thousands of these packets flowing around at any given time that's not very yeah it's not going to happen even if they did get a packet they kind of unencrypted what the risk is is that when you get this data and you import it into some kind of software like say you use a smart thermostat and then you have this third-party web app that is it has the credentials and takes that data in now that's where I think the vulnerability for your system would be because in that system would have access to your data maybe your address so they can triangulate where this device is so I think the risk really for these smart energy devices is with these third-party apps or third-party providers that need to make sure that the data that they collect from you on your behalf is rock solid and secure let me add one thought I mean I don't know if this is part of you know the program but I worry about some foreign national actor nation actor trying to shut down our systems you know make and take take energy away from our society in one way they could do that is by you know dousing the power plants somehow or cutting you know critical boxes that deliver energy to our homes but I suppose if you have all these black boxes deployed out there and there's one protocol that they could screw up somehow they could terminate service to all those houses in one stroke is this is this of concern you know with the smart meters and everything else we've got two different components from my viewpoint one is going to be for the commercial clients and then other ones are going to be for the residential homeowners and the condominium okay all right so in the area of the smart meters for the residents which is what we think we're focusing on a little bit today is how much information is available and what will it do to your life if somebody were to tap into it I just had some conversations with some people on the neighbor islands who have had smart meters installed and you know it's a big concern up in front when they first get it and after so much time the concern just disappears didn't that come up in kawai there were people who wanted to opt out oh yeah who did opt out from the kiuc system they didn't want black boxes because they're afraid about an invasion of privacy yes and that's what we're really talking about here in this context well talk about what can happen if you get that information so say I have your water heater a smart water heater and I get the stream of data from your home what can I do I can tell when you're not home that might be a good time to visit with my sort of skeleton key or if you showed that somebody is home we shouldn't be home like say you're significant others looking at the data like who's home on Tuesday in the middle of the day like there's a lot of usage here so someone's coming home either not going to work or doing something else or you might be an indoor farmer for example like there are a lot of different things that might show up tropical plant growth medical marijuana of course that's what we're talking about but I think you know the risk for these devices to to invade your privacy does exist but then to a certain extent I think it can be profiled but then they require software to guess what's happening with these devices and so it's not you know I think the risk is pretty nominal from my perspective at that level there's no ROI there you know I mean for the amount of effort the bad guy would have to put in it's very little to come out right yeah he could stand outside your house and watch too much quicker and not have to worry about unencryption and crack into a system and breaking laws I guess sitting in front of someone's home is not illegal right but maybe the other things might be so yeah but it's okay let's let's assume there is some risk anyway how do you ameliorate that risk how do you deal with that risk because who knows maybe the risks that we see today could expand later who knows you know where technology goes you could you could quote me on that what are we doing what can we do you know to make this more secure so I think there are a few things that individuals can do the first thing is that to not sign up for any kind of data stream or access to your data unless you need that data as oftentimes you might sign up and then have access to it and then forget about it and then you know a couple years down the road that password or that username gets used by someone else maliciously so I think being judicious about signing up for services that you don't need I think what services might be like for example if you get a smart meter and then there is a program to try and guess what energy you're using and in what way and then you go into a portal to look at it like it has to have access it has to have access then that would have both your who you are maybe your address and your usage patterns and so if you don't need that maybe you know not sign up for that yeah I think the the bigger risk is we love really simple cat-like passwords and so people have to get used to it just creating that also you know oh I use like ABC 1 2 3 but I think we really got a good get good at managing our passwords because they become so vital to storing stuff so I think getting a password manager I think everyone should use a password manager that is encrypted and you have a different strong password for all these different services you don't have to memorize it just memorize you know where you get access to that password so that's a couple of things that I think people can do yeah well just a footnote to that you know I think the guy who invents there are a number of password managers on the market now and and you can put your fingerprint down and maybe even your your cornea yeah whatever it is maybe a little dna 10 who knows what but you know the guy who figures out a really clear clean easy way to control passwords and access including the passwords you're concerned about here now it's going to make a million billion it's going to be a big deal because I think all over the world people are aggravated with a number of passwords they have to have changes in password and all the problems and the risks of passwords so you know if you have nothing else to do oh and why don't you invent that okay maybe yeah I've got a number of patents so maybe you just sparked some imagination going on and we haven't worked with passwords before and it is broken it is really coming the time is coming okay so what about the um what about other things can be done for example if I'm the manufacturer of the black box and they might be competing black boxes here right what would I want to put in to improve the security prospects of my black box so we have a black box that we for our work we put on in homes and so one thing we do is we never allow anything to to call into the black box so these black boxes should never be able to be reached from the public internet ever and that's one big layer of security so for example if we need to talk to the black box it has to come and talk to our secured server using encryption and a and a sort of encryption protocol that is only known to us and so that way you know no one can go and try and covertly take over that machine and so that these systems have risks as well so if it stops working you know we can't actually get to it but I think that's one layer of control that that is pretty common or easy to use but not everyone's doing that yeah but it's important in the internet of the thing of the things you know right I mean it's not just not just applicable to these energy devices it could be millions of things that are all right getting on to the internet and if you could figure out a way the handshake the encrypted handshake whatever it is to freeze that unit out of a hacker that's a real positive thing so how much of what all in is saying do you agree with actually I agree with all of those things but a fundamental thing that I would like to ask your opinion on is when you go out to the general public the residents how literate are there when it comes to computer terms for security because if I say tell me your IP address or if I say use a secure signal would they know what that means because we're communicating that but I'm always wondering do they really understand what I mean what's a secure Wi-Fi versus a non-secure Wi-Fi is there is there a level of concern where they just not understanding the real meaning of why this is important yeah I think security literacy is pretty low my sister from Hilo called me this morning had a few technical questions I think that the general public may not really understand all these terms and it's really easy unfortunately to fool people and so that that is a big concern is that yeah it is just the tip of the iceberg engineering so it is really so the best hackers in the world are social hackers not technical so that leaves us really vulnerable to psychology and psychological hacks to get to our and that's about critical thinking you got to learn that at school I hope yeah but it brought my concern when you know we get older and we have to fill in all these insurance form for medical needs it's all online and the audience that has been asked to do all of these online things these words are foreign to them very foreign the concept all they do is they go boy you can come turn on that computer thing and I got to do the medical stuff you can come help and that's the extent of it and you know they struggle through all of these things so they don't know what these terms are and they're the ones who hopefully they have a large nest egg that is vulnerable because really my life isn't that interesting if you want to see when I turn on my lights or when I make coffee cool for I have it on my phone I already but you know Jay what is interesting is we did a survey for a local utility 1500 people so statistically significant one of the questions was can we use your your personal internet for the utilities work and so I thought that would come around 60 percent saying sure it was like 89 percent so there is a willingness from the public to let outside third parties use their personal internet but why though why do you think that you got that high percentage of success maybe it was based on looks for example that is definitely not my looks certainly don't look at me I mean what why do people respond that way I mean maybe it's it's the utility it's energy it's you know it's your it's your neighborhood friend kind of thing somebody you know or could know as a result you know you trust them and would it be the same on the mainland I don't think so yeah so that's why I suspected you know 60 percent is where we would end up and that would mean that you know we would justify the need for some other third party communications gateway other than the home internet yeah but that survey really surprised me and so we asked other questions as well too and one of the questions was you know if you were to provide some service to the grid using these kind of smart grid type services would you want a monthly check would you like a one-time amount or would you like to know that this work is going to help Hawaii reach its renewable energy goals and we thought huh you know we'll see where that ends up 93 percent or so pick the last one the renewable goal not that's something yeah and so it stayed with a big heart exactly you know I was there is that yeah you can use my internet and I don't know everything about it and I just want to know that you're going to be helping with renewables so that was really positive yeah that's really terrific so you know you mentioned the black box and these devices I'm sure there's more than one manufacturer out there some of them may be more secure than others some of them may have you know software or hardware that that protects you from you know being hacked I don't know the answer to this but are people going to have the choice going forward can can they say I want this one because it's more resilient or more secure rather than that one it's just going to play in the decision process I can answer that or you can you know one of the things that I'm more worried about is let's say they do get some black boxes or some devices those devices aid so fast yeah so the security systems get outdated really quickly so what happens if you have a smart appliance in your home you bought it this year you forget that it's a smart appliance in three or four years no one updates this thing that becomes a point of vulnerability over time and you know our lives are so busy today we just forget that we have things plugged in and we call those phantom roads you can imagine all these smart devices so my concern is yes we have all of these different devices made by different companies but we only touch a few of them and those are the ones we're going to update our cell phones when was the last time you updated your smart TV never but it's it's well let me say it's just as smart today as it was the day I got it but it's no smarter so we believe all the fake news is going around they can watch you now some of the federal government people can watch you at home using your TV they can listen to you and all of those things yeah you know we've got to wear clothes now all the time we're walking around at home because they're devices so that's been in the news for quite some time again those those devices yeah so I mean how do we how do we deal with this kind of thing you know you make assumption that it's okay it's not a threat you know it's just a home home device it's a consumer home device it's not going to bother me and yet I think we're going to have invasive invasive experiences like that going forward including on computers by the way but one of the things I want to just kind of reflect back on our today's topic is are the smart meters going to hurt us more in the future or are they going to help us more in my opinion we need the smart motors meters to evolve forward to become an energy-free state well I think I think you get 99.9 percent agreement on that I'm sure you know if you went out with surveys would you get on that issue well think about like what if that we told the board of water supply you have to let all your anybody with the water source feed water into the the meter and and your neighbors you know whether the pressure is right or not or the quality they have to live with it and that's essentially what's happening with our energy grid right we're getting all these tens of thousands of people pouring in energy and yet I if I'm not pouring in I need to have the right frequency and voltage at all times and yet you know there there's no upgrade to the infrastructure you can't do it so I really see that as critical we need to fix our infrastructure so that we can allow for this decentralized so how is this going to happen going forward I mean I don't have a smart meter I also haven't upgraded my TV but when is it going to happen when is this going to be on my on my front door and I hope it's by a legitimate person from the utility comes to me you know there's social engineering for you but give me a timeline when do I have to really address this question so we worked with one electric so there are I think a little more than 5000 smart meters on this island some on Maui and of course on Kauai which you mentioned earlier so the 5000 plus are in place they've been in place for all over a year it's not a test it's real it's real right I've seen them we actually have devices in these units or in these in these areas with smart meters we did a community project where we knocked on doors and in this community and asked folks questions and stuff I actually got on the news for that was kind of cool and learned a little bit about what's going on and I think the the latest filing with the public utilities commission for the sort of larger rollout they're working some things out I'm not sure the latest status on that but I think the it's it's happening I'm not sure how quickly who pays for it who pays for it who pays for the meter uh do I have to buy the meter I think ultimately you pay for it in terms of like your ruled up costs no but when I get it do I have yeah I don't think there's any any charge right so I actually got my meter switched out and so my meter was switched out um and you know I didn't pay anything so it just goes where the old meter was right yeah it's taken out it looks the same who connects it uh the HECO sends an electrician over and then they it takes about 15 minutes to switch my meter so out came the in went the new and the new looks uh more confusing there's no dial there's all these numbers that oscillate and somewhere negative and stuff I don't really understand sounds interesting to me yeah so you know going back to the point of selection so when somebody comes and says I want to put a smart meter in your house what do you say and I say well you know I like that one but I like this one better do I have a choice can I can I articulate that choice I don't think that would be an option I've never heard of any utility that offered you the option confusing for them yeah they wouldn't know what they were getting right and it's more like a utility appliance so it's not like one's going to add more value I think than the other so Derek why do I want smart meters in my community you know what does what does it do for me you know all it says there are 5 000 meters out there now but there's you know there's you know 500 000 or 600 700 000 home homeowner units or whatever residential units and businesses and all that some of them are not on it do I have to have them all on there why why why should I do this what why why should you ask a really great question and a lot of times when I talk to people in community it's only a few people like all in who are really understand what's going on but a smart meter device to me and this is my interpretation my own personal bin is a way for the utility companies to react appropriately and quick enough so that the power can stay constant many people don't understand what happens if the frequency changes everybody here is 60 hertz because you gotta look for it but they don't realize that certain devices in your home like your refrigerator motors if it dips or it goes above that those things can actually fry yeah there's some components in your home that just don't like it and you'll have some utility but why don't they build the infrastructure inside the line you know at at the central office somehow a power generation plant and do it all there just one box you know what I've always wanted when I was like in high school I've always wanted a Lamborghini those things fly and back then this is a long time ago there were a lot of expensive cars I mean you're talking like well back then was 200,000 was a lot of money so those fast reacting generators the way that I understand it they're not that efficient the older slower reacting they're far more energy efficient they use less fuels and those are the ones we want but the fast reacting the Lamborghini devices they're going to suck up a lot of power and fuel to be so reactive so the utility can understand what's going to happen and predict it better they'll be smarter and they can control the prices from increasing now what's interesting is this is a statement I support the community I want to be a member of the community yes I'm not doing this from me alone it has no big effect from me alone I'm doing it for everyone I'm part of a collaborative effort by everyone am I right that's what this is isn't it here's one example there's a world health organization study that looked at smart meters and said you know so what what if we install these the like what Derek was saying if the smart meters are in place the utility can be more efficient so you got to get voltage at the right frequency and voltage at the last home on the line and so you don't want to overpower that line so with the smart meters you can really dial it perfectly and that dialing perfectly saves so much energy and therefore fossil fuels being burned less that you can quantify that in terms of live save each year and so WHL came out with a pretty massive number of lives that would be saved each year if we adopted smart meters okay we have one minute left Alan and Derek yeah and you could talk to camera one you want to leave a message with people this is your big opportunity what's the message you want to leave with them today you want to go first yes what I ask everybody to do is learn a little bit more like you learn a little bit about money learn a little bit about energy learn a little bit about your internet security those precious few words can mean a lot of reduced headache in the future just take that time it's for you it's not going to go away it's for you but it's also for the whole city the whole state too it's for your neighbors yes it's for everybody all of us yeah and mine is go to your local hardware store or you know longs and stuff like that and buy these mechanical timers they're five dollars and put them on the wi-fi systems your DVRs your gaming systems all these things that suck energy when you're sleeping that's silly and so you know you don't need wi-fi when you're sleeping so if you got kids set it for 8 p.m. they're just shut off right so at five bucks each you'll be saving so much energy and making your home more secure because you won't have a wi-fi signal broadcasting at 2 a.m. for that is perfect your guys are great you are a statement an endorsement of the common good here in Hawaii thank you all thank you very much a Murray yeah Murray