Metro Council President Tom Hughes (left), Salem Mayor Anna Peterson (center) and Salem City Manager Linda Norris work at the Team Oregon booth, promoting Oregon's solar industry at the International Photovoltaic Power Generation Expo in Tokyo. The candidates for Metro Council President in 2010 talked about the lengths they'd go to find jobs for the Portland region.
But Tom Hughes probably didn't know he'd travel around the globe – literally – recruiting businesses to the Portland region.
Because of a delayed flight, Hughes wound up flying from San Francisco to Japan via Germany, 23 hours in a plane (and 5 hours at the Frankfurt airport) that ended with his clothes lost and his first engagement missed.
Hughes was part of an Oregon delegation that went to Japan for the International Photovoltaic Power Generation Expo, looking to build on the region's budding solar industry. The group also held seminars on doing business in Oregon, the first of which Hughes couldn't make because of the series of airline mishaps.
By the time the Oregon delegation made it back to Portland – the short way, across the Pacific, completing Hughes' circumnavigation – there were no signed contracts for a new mega-employer in the Silicon Forest. But, Hughes said the group came back with some leads with potential.
A lot of the focus in Japan has been on building carbon-free neighborhoods, with super-efficient homes and electric vehicles parked outside. While we're unlikely to see a copy of Yokohama's "Carbon-Free Zone" in Portland, Hughes said electric vehicles and efficient homes play into the future of Portland's manufacturing sector.
Two companies Hughes spoke with were interested in assembling electric vehicle charging stations in Portland. The stations would be manufactured in Japan before being put together in Oregon, possibly in the Rivergate area.
"Most of the folks in Japan are convinced that Portland will be the roll-out place for electric vehicle distribution from Japan," Hughes said. "Several companies are looking at getting charging stations set up. It's not a huge amount of business, but it'll be good business for the Port (of Portland)."
On the other side of the equation, Hughes said improving energy efficiency in homes has the potential to bring business to the region. A keynote speech highlighted the importance of thinking about solar power as a system, not just a panel on the roof.
The keynote speaker, Hughes said, told the audience that "it takes much longer for solar to pay out if you do it as a standalone as opposed to doing it with the fuel cell and the battery and the whole thing."
Panasonic, which recently purchased Sanyo, has a particular interest in the whole-home approach. Sanyo has a solar panel manufacturing facility in Salem.
Hughes said Panasonic is folding Sanyo products into the parent company's lines and are integrating it into a concept they're calling ecohomes. Panasonic is building houses that are energy efficient using an insulation material that they use in their hot pots and refrigerators, and designing houses to maximize the use of natural light, heat and cooling.
"They have all of the Panasonic power efficient appliances and they say if you build a house that way… you can reduce your carbon emission down to about 35 percent," Hughes said. "If you add to that solar cells, combined with fuel cells and a storage battery system, and all of it is coordinated with a computer system, you can actually get the emissions down to zero."
The concepts, Hughes said, could be implemented independent of Panasonic's branding. Oregon solar panels, Oregon fuel cells could partner with developers to make socially responsible homes.
"If you look at a development like South Hillsboro, where you've got a developer that might be interested in saying 'Let's take a 10-house part of that neighborhood and design it to be a solar ecohomes,' you could do your own thing," Hughes said.
Hughes also toured Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, its Big Sight convention center and attended meetings with city officials in Tokyo and Yokohama. He is scheduled to travel to Germany later this month with Portland Mayor Sam Adams, Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey and Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis to visit companies that already have operations in the Portland region.