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New chief energy officer seeks partnerships at home and offshore

Mark Glick, Gov. Josh Green's nominee to lead the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office, in Honolulu on Feb. 16, 2023.
Savannah Harriman-Pote
/
HPR
Mark Glick, Gov. Josh Green's nominee to lead the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office, in Honolulu on Feb. 16, 2023.

When asked how he feels about his new role as the head of the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office, Mark Glick said he feels like "the luckiest person in the world to have this job at this time."

Glick has yet to be confirmed by the Hawai'i State Senate as Chief Energy Officer, but he's wasting no time in getting down to business. He attended the National Association of State Energy Officers conference in Washington, D.C. last week and met with other top state and federal energy policymakers to set priorities and forge partnerships for 2023.

HPR's Savannah Harriman-Pote spoke with Glick upon his return about his vision for Hawaiʻi's energy future.

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Interview Highlights

On the role of partnerships across our shores

MARK GLICK: There's much that is very similar about Hawaiʻi and Alaska, believe it or not. We're both extremely remote communities. We're both essentially disparate from the 48 continental states and we work together on a lot of initiatives. One of the things that we've worked together on is technical assistance, and that's basically working with communities directly to deal with their high-priority issues in energy transition. And we've formed a partnership with Maine, Alaska, and Hawaiʻi to be able to do that.  Maine, most people may not know, has hundreds of islands off the coast, they have a lot of issues that are similar to us about having low and moderate income, people living on small remote islands, and how do you provide safe, reliable energy to them. So we're able to combine forces and figure out — how do we solve those problems?

On community involvement in Hawaiʻi's energy future

GLICK: I mean, consider that when the state began the Hawaiʻi Clean Energy Initiative, we kind of started at almost zero, and in 2007, 2008, there were so many ambitions... The perceptions of low-hanging fruit had to do with large-scale wind energy projects and so on, and when they were, I think, originally configured — and I don't really believe there was any really attempt at bad faith — but when they did that, there wasn't real engagement with the communities and there wasn't even thought about, well, is are there benefits coming to the communities from doing this? So obviously we know that there were some missteps in big wind. I remember hearing early on with some of the early wind projects on Hawaiʻi Island, how are you gonna dispose of them once... those windmills are no longer operable? So we've now really focused on a lot more on dealing with those things much better.

GLICK: I think one of the things that hasn't always happened, and I think we're all guilty of it, at some point in our careers, that we didn't ask the fundamental question as we reached out first to communities and said, "Okay, what how do you envision your community be? And how can energy help fulfill that vision?" And that's really the appropriate initial question. And if you do that, you get answers. And if you listen to those answers, essentially, the community drives the discussion, and they create the vision.

On diversifying our energy portfolio

GLICK: The one thing that's absolutely clear is that we shouldn't be reliant on any single energy resource. So we believe very strongly in a diverse renewable portfolio. And certainly, there's nothing that's totally perfect.

GLICK: Some of this may get a little nerdy, but some of the things that help firm up intermittence are battery energy storage systems, things like flywheels, that sort of expand the universe for being able to operate a grid a little bit more reliably in the future. There's these sort of grid-forming technologies that essentially mimic through technology, through synchronous condensers, and so on, thermal generators, the ones that burn fuel oil 24/7. There are some new technologies that are really pushing the limits that are going to fundamentally change how the grid functions. And I think those will be advanced pretty rapidly over the next five years.

On the greatest challenge to the energy transition

GLICK: The supply chain disruptions led to disruptions in the ability to get certain rare materials and so on. That has been extremely harmful. So when I look at our next phase of procurement, unfortunately, we're going to be dealing with more expensive solutions when we were in this wonderful period over the last five to seven years of declining cost curves. All energy [costs have] gone up because of these problems. My biggest concern is, are we going to be able to balance these supply chain issues with the speed that we want to move forward?

Savannah Harriman-Pote is the energy and climate change reporter. She is also the lead producer of HPR's "This Is Our Hawaiʻi" podcast. Contact her at sharrimanpote@hawaiipublicradio.org.
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