There are many ways to invest in the future of energy in Hawaii. It will take creativity and hard work from project developers; the community, including indigenous groups; regulators; and energy service providers to come up with projects that are acceptable for all concerned. Building trust and respect between stakeholders within the context of equitable community development will be a key metric of success. Any viable project will require substantial amounts of financial capital and an adequate return on investment. The skill development and job creation that results must take us towards a new energy economy. Every community faces similar challenges – how can we invest in people while designing energy projects that are financially viable, resilient, and enhance job skills?
Join us for the 8th Annual Hawaii Energy Conference as we explore how to invest with knowledge and respect in Hawaii.
During this time of many health challenges in our life, family, community and the world, it is worthwhile to explore ways to live healthier and happier at home. For example, while we cannot get together for safety reasons, we can still honor seasonal changes and traditions. As Fall approaches, a time of celebration begins in many northern-hemisphere cultures. In Hawaii, one such tradition is the Mid-Autumn Celebration, also known as the Chinese Moon Festival. Honoring the joy of harvest, family and friends reunite during this time of bounty, offering thanks for an abundance of fruits, vegetables and grains.
“Regretfully, the Chinese Moon Festival usually celebrated at Lahaina’s Wo Hing Temple on Front Street is cancelled this year due to the pandemic,” said Dr. Busaba Yip, Wo Hing Museum Docent and Cultural Director. “However, we can still honor the island’s harvest of locally grown products as well as esteemed traditions from China. One of the most important Chinese festivals, the observance is an ancient tradition commemorating the completeness and abundance of life. It occurs during the harvest moon on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The date in the Western calendar changes annually. This year, it falls on Thursday, October 1, 2020.
“It is sad that we cannot have a community gathering this year,” Yip reflected. “Nevertheless, knowing the moon festival’s importance will enhance a celebration of the season at home. For example, people can observe the season with an outdoor service, creation walk or pilgrimage, or prepare meals using the fruits of the harvest season. Many symbolic foods are used to give thanks for the bountiful harvest and to promote fertile fields and bigger crops. One of these foods, the moon cake, is the most distinctive. It is a sweet, round cake in the shape of the moon filled with lotus seeds, taro and black bean paste. Some have salted duck egg yolks at the center of each cake representing the moon. I wish you all a healthy, happy Moon Festival—Zhong Qiu Jie Kuai Le!”
Many thanks to Maui visitors and volunteers for supporting the tradition of the Chinese Moon Festival for our families and future generations. Dr. Busaba Yip, Wo Hing Museum Docent and Cultural Director
The 2020 Hawaii Energy Conference (HEC), postponed in March due to Covid-19, aired in July with a live-stream virtual event. Presented by the Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) and supported by the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, the conference welcomed over 600 participants from 24 different states and Puerto Rico. “An exciting feature this year was our international participation,” said Leslie Wilkins, MEDB President and CEO. “Six countries joined us, spanning time zones from Europe to Asia.”
One of the nation’s leading energy conferences, the HEC brought together experts on energy policy, strategies, leadership, and innovation to focus on how the energy sector should respond to the challenges imposed by the pandemic. The program included four panels plus brief video presentations with information related to the theme, ‘Imagining a Just Recovery: What would that look like for the grid?’
Jennifer Potter, Commissioner of the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, and member of the conference program committee said, “The HEC has regrouped at a critical time for Hawaii and our country. The incredible macroeconomic stress and individual financial burdens across our nation mean that there is no better time to have dialogue on affordability and equity. Building a recovery plan that includes all socioeconomic groups is imperative.”
In his keynote, Scott Seu, President and CEO of Hawaiian Electric Company, explained, “It is not enough anymore to simply say we will all benefit from cleaner, cheaper renewables someday. The duration and the depth of our current economic downturn is unlike anything we have ever experienced, so someday is not soon enough. The leaders of Hawaiian Electric are looking at what bold strategies we can use to benefit the most people, the most quickly. Equity, opportunity, and participation are as important for our successful transition to renewable energy as any field source or technology.”
Seu added, “I have challenged myself and my team to think outside of our traditional role of keeping the lights on; to be bold, creative, and come up with ideas, such as a community solar program, that will strengthen our economy; to be the better Hawaii we can all imagine.”
The renewable energy transformation must include everyone. That is what equity looks like to me. Then, no one gets left behind.
Scott Seu, Hawaiian Electric Company, President and CEO
Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) sponsored approximately 30 people from around the world for the first 2020 meeting of the OpenMP Architecture Review Board (ARB). OpenMP is a software system that allows programmers to distribute work and data among different processors running concurrently in a computing system. Dr. Michael Klemm, CEO OpenMP ARB, said, “Working together face-to-face is an integral part of the development process for future OpenMP specifications. I want to thank MEDB for making our meeting possible on this beautiful island.”
The Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC), through the University of Hawaii (UH), joined the OpenMP ARB in the fall of 2018. The group is responsible for maintaining an open standard that all computer companies, such as Intel, IBM, and many others, agree to support, and that meets the needs of national and international laboratories, universities, computer centers, and researchers worldwide. Often, these users want new features. The purpose of the meetings, held three times per year in different locations, is to bring users and people from the computer companies together to agree on how new features should be added to the standard.
“The MHPCC strives to drive our needs into commercially available products while advancing its computing capabilities with the latest technology that industry has to offer,” said Lt. Col. Scott Pierce, USAF, MHPCC Director. “The OpenMP consortium gives us the opportunity to engage with industry, academic, and international partners to develop standards and tools. These tools build the computational base by which we can model, simulate, design, and develop systems across many of our modernization priorities.”
Dr. Alice Koniges, UH Research Principal Investigator, is the primary representative from MHPCC and UH on the OpenMP ARB. She is also a Maui author, with two co-authors, of a new book, The OpenMP Common Core, just released from the MIT Press. “Our book fills a major gap in parallel programming, explaining a method to reduce the amount of time to run a computer program,” Koniges said. “It offers an introduction to widely used features in OpenMP and describes how to use them to solve a range of programming problems.”
Using a wide assortment of exercises, our book guides readers through the most essential elements of writing parallel code to become effective programmers
Alice Koniges, Ph.D., UH Research Principal Investigator
The Hawai’i Energy Conference brings together regional and national experts on energy policy, strategies, leadership and innovation. The 2020 Conference will explore the timely issues of beneficial electrification and the design of an equitable energy transition. Participants will take a deep dive into how electrification can be “beneficial”. As more functions are served by electricity, demand for electricity will rise. This opens pathways for more deployment of renewable generation, which supports the sort of ambitious decarbonization goals that state legislatures are enacting. What are the benefits, challenges, and practical limits of electrification? How can we break through economic, cultural and linguistic barriers to ensure that we have an energy system that works for everyone? Is it possible to create a transition that respects local cultures, is socially just, and protects our most vulnerable?
Come join us as we explore pathways to creating an equitable, resilient energy system of the future.
This past summer, three Maui High School students, Jazmyne Viloria, Cailyn Omuro, and Faith Soliven were chosen from over 100 applicants to attend a week-long immersive, real-world journalism experience with the PBS NewsHour in Washington DC. They were among youth journalists from 14 states who attended the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs’ (SRL) fifth annual Academy.
“It was an amazing experience in broadcasting,” said SRL mentor, chaperone and previous teacher of the girls, Jennifer Suzuki, Maui Waena STEMworks™ advisor. “The students worked alongside journalism educators and public media mentors to produce original youth-driven digital content while honing their journalism and production skills through a series of specialized workshops.”
In partnership with the National Association for Media Literacy Education, the stories produced by the SRL group were showcased at a special screening at the Newseum. “These students learn how to create, collaborate and find their voice by producing, writing, and editing a story in a matter of days,” said Elis Estrada, director of SRL. “Their worlds open up when they arrive in DC and by the end of the academy, they realize that they’ve found other teenagers who are passionate about video storytelling, as well as the motivation to teach what they learned to their peers in the new school year.”
Viloria from Maui High reflected, “Storytelling gives me more than just a creative outlet. Capturing the moments and creating the story gives me a new passion, perspective, and peregrination. Youth media is the answer to showing the world what us kids are capable of.”
Soliven added, “I get a rewarding feeling when I can give someone a voice by sharing their story. To create change in our communities and in the world, I am inspired to dive deep into both sides of sources to find truth with integrity. It is important that a voice is given to our youth.”
Omuro agreed, “I’ve met so many amazing people and learned so much through storytelling. By helping the next generation get into media we are creating the future in a way that can help everyone. Youth media can change the world!”
The girls worked in groups with students from across the nation to create stories on youth in DC. They are learning how to fill a critical gap, providing coverage and insights on issues affecting their generation.
Jennifer Suzuki, PBS SRL chaperone, teacher and mentor, Maui Waena Intermediate School STEMworks™ advisor
As a global leader in Alzheimer’s research, the Alzheimer’s Association® leads through innovation, bringing together government, industry, and academia to advance global collaboration of researchers. Together, they work on causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
In Hawaii, the Alzheimer’s Association® Aloha Chapter mission is to provide care and support for everyone affected, and to reduce the risk of dementia through the promotion of brain health. Alzheimer’s, the sixth most prevalent disease in the United States, takes more lives than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.
“On Maui, we have unique challenges and limited resources,” said Christine Spencer, Regional Coordinator, Maui County. “The average cost to take care of someone living with Alzheimer’s disease is over 150,000 dollars a year. This, compounded with Maui’s high cost of living and lack of affordable housing, puts families on the island in really tough situations.”
The Alzheimer’s Association® strives to offer support services to families around the clock, with a 24/7 hotline for crisis or questions. This can be done by telephone or in-person by scheduling an appointment. They offer free care consultations that assist in planning for and coping with the disease, as well as professional trainings. Year-round educational classes are offered in topics ranging from legal and financial planning to understanding dementia-related behaviors.
“It is important that caregivers know that they are not alone,” Spencer said. “There are 65,000 people in Hawaii who are caregivers, an unpaid job that could be considered one of the most difficult jobs out there. We encourage people to join one of our support groups or classes. We all have so much to learn from each other when it comes to fighting this disease— leading the way to Alzheimer’s first survivors.”
The Walk to End Alzheimer’s starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday October 26th, 2019, at the Boys and Girls Club in Kahului. “It is a special event that recognizes people who have the disease, loved ones lost to the disease, and the thousands of caregivers in the community,” said Spencer. “We believe that, together, we can fight Alzheimer’s and find a cure!”
We have an incredibly generous community on Maui. With their support, and with the funds we raise at the Walk to End Alzheimer’s, we are expanding our efforts to unreached communities in Molokai and Hana. For more information contact: Christine Spencer at 808-591-2771 ext. 8235 or go to www.alz.org/hawaii.
Christine Spencer, Alzheimer’s Association® Regional Coordinator, Maui County
The first community forum on 100% Renewable Energy: What Will Maui Look Like? took place recently at the Cameron Center in Kahului. Coming on the heels of the 2019 Hawaii Energy Conference and Exhibition, the standing-room only event, presented by Maui Electric Company (MECO) in partnership with Maui Tomorrow and the Sierra Club, outlined the challenges and some solutions for Maui’s renewable future.
“We’ll have different ideas on how to achieve our clean energy future,” said Sharon Suzuki, president of Maui County and Hawai’i Island Utilities. “Achieving the goal of 100 percent renewables by 2045 requires all of us working together. As Maui Electric starts to put more bids out to procure more renewable energy projects for the island, it will require informed energy developers, available land resources, and ongoing dialogue with our communities, regulators and government leaders.”
Moderator Mahina Martin, Manager, Government and Community Relations at Maui Electric, led the forum featuring the following panelists: Kumu Kapono’ai Molitau, Kumu Hula; Albert Perez, Executive Director, Maui Tomorrow Foundation; Chris Reynolds, System Operations Director, Maui Electric Company; Alex De Roode, Energy Commissioner, County of Maui; Dana Sato, Asset Management Director, Kamehameha Schools; and Rob Weltman, Chairperson, Sierra Club Maui Group.
Weltman said, “Maui can and must be powered by carbon-neutral, local, environmentally friendly technologies, including solar and wind. Contributing to sea level rise and extreme weather events through continued dependence on fossil fuels is not an option for our vulnerable island community.”
Perez described a community solar program. “The project provides solar energy to residential and commercial customers without access to privately-owned rooftop solar, including many renters and apartment dwellers.”
De Roode, on electrification of transportation, said, “Ground transportation today accounts for one quarter of Hawaii’s fossil fuels consumption and over one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. MECO is focused on initiatives to advance the switch from gasoline to electric vehicles, helping to reduce Hawaii’s dependence on imported oil.”
Molitau and Sato agreed, “It is our malama ‘aina to care for the land− physically and spiritually. Together, we must understand the need to preserve and protect our natural resources for our future generations.”
As of 2019, private rooftop and utility-scale solar, biofuel and wind resources boosted the amount of renewable energy used to generate electricity in Maui County to 38 percent. We’ve exceeded the state’s goal of 30 percent renewables by 2020, lowered greenhouse gas emissions from our generators, and reduced the amount of oil we used.
Sharon Suzuki, President of Maui County and Hawai’i Island Utilities
Enjoy a festive evening of food, fun and camaraderie this Labor Day weekend while investing in STEM education. MEDB invites you to the annual fundraising dinner, “Pathways To Our Future.”
BID on over 150 fabulous items during the Apples for Education Auction
COMPETE in teams during MEDB’s signature interactive game
ENJOY memorable presentations by Maui County’s STEM stars
CONGRATULATE this year’s student and teacher award winners
Proceeds go to advance MEDB’s STEM programs from kindergarten to careers; as well as enabling MEDB to continue to pursue meaningful pathways that benefit the lives of our residents in Maui County and statewide.
Where: Wailea Beach Resort–Marriott, Maui
When: Saturday, August 31, 2019
4:30 pm: Reception and Silent Auction
6:00 pm: Dinner and Live Auction
Individual seats are $200.
Sponsorship opportunities are available.
For information and reservations, please visit: www.medb.org/KAH
