Getting a haircut will be different

Many itching to get a haircut will soon get relief, now that many more services are opening on Oahu. But expect an altogether different salon/barbershop experience. The rules for maintaining a safe cut in the pandemic era will mandate masks and, in small shops, an instruction to wait outside until the chair is ready.

The experience is likely to be shorter, too — appointments will have to be spread out, so salon owners will want to work in as many customers as they can.

Might as well recycle those magazines in the lobby.

Big batteries for Hawaiian Electric

In its most ambitious strides to date toward meeting Hawaii’s mandate to generate 100% of electricity sales from renewable resources, Hawaiian Electric has tentatively picked 16 projects to provide clean-energy replacement service for coal-fired AES Hawaii and oil-fired Kahului Power Plant, which are slated to be closed.

One proposal — offered up by Plus Power, a fledgling San Francisco company headed by a former Tesla and SolarCity executive — would install the state’s largest battery system for storing electricity at Kapolei Harborside industrial area. It’s the latest example of how energy technology is evolving to help utilities become cleaner and more sustainable.