 EOT, and the expansion of EOT, the acronym is going to be on the final exam, so you better write it down, because our guest, Yingmei Kaplan, is going to help you understand that. I'm Jay Fidel, this is ThinkTech, and this is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. And we're going to go clean today on electric vehicles. Welcome to the show, Yingwei. Thank you, Jay. Glad to be here. So let's talk about electric vehicles in the state of Hawaii. How are we doing on that, and what's the connection between the initiative to increase the number of electric vehicles and your program, your new program that came out in your press release called Hawaiian Electric Launches Charge Shop, Commercial Pilot, to reduce upfront costs of installing EV charges. This is all very important, and you are the manager of EOT, so exactly what does EOT stand for? EOT is electrification of transportation. I'm the manager of the deployment and operations division. We also have policy and program division, and then a couple of customer specialists. We are an A plus high-energy team in this upcoming industry, and the EV adoption has really picked up. Hawaii is among the top five states in the US in EV adoption, so we're just trying to prepare ourselves to set up for the future and get ahead of the curve. Well, it's a chicken-egg thing, isn't it? It's a spiral. The more charging stations I have, the more people are going to want to buy electric vehicles and not be concerned about range anxiety and so on. So if you make more charging stations, you have more electric vehicles, and if you have more electric vehicles, chicken-egg, you need more charging stations. Yeah, that's a good point. It goes both directions, and it's actually how our DC fast-charging, which is the public charging program started, was to try to build out the backbones to help alleviate range anxiety, and then we started to have, you know, also have rates to incentivize people to charge during the day when the solar power is at peak, and then we are having them make ready programs. So that's what you were just bringing up, the commercial make ready. We also have an eBus make ready that was launched earlier this year. This commercial make ready is called Charge Up Commercial. It's a really exciting program. It actually was launched just the day before yesterday, October 25th. So we are accepting applications from now to mid-January, and then we'll do an assessment of the sites, and then we have some prep work to do, like conceptual design and, you know, participation agreement terms and easements. So we have some work to do before reaching the participation agreement. Once that's reached with the site hosts, we can proceed with design construction. Okay. I want to drill down on some of that. So in order to increase the number of charging stations on commercial properties in businesses, in businesses around the state, you have this Charge Up program, Charge Up Commercial program, which I think is very important, you know. We might have expected years ago, not too many years ago, but years ago that these businesses would have not only installed their own charger, but they would have sold charging to their customers and, you know, got paid for it. But that really hasn't happened because I'm guessing here you can correct me if I'm wrong. That hasn't happened because it's too expensive for them to, you know, to put in the capital to install the charging station, particularly a fast charging station. Okay. So they haven't really done it. So now in comes one electric and says, hey, we got this Charge Up Commercial pilot program. We're going to see if we can expedite, you know, the installation of charging stations for businesses. And that's what it's all about. And it's three-year pilot. Yeah. Yes. Our public charging pilot has been running for almost 10 years. Our May party programs are three-year pilots. So the first nine months is ramp up. We do a design. We reach out to, you know, focus groups to try to design for implementation. And then we have about 18 months to actually implement it. And then 12 months to do the data collection. So total is three years. And commercial make ready, we are going to take up, if not all, majority of the upfront cost to bring the infrastructure like transformers, meters, conduits, electric panels. And we do the procurement, the construction and make it happen for the site host to just procure their own stations and operate their stations. So yeah, the savings are should be significant enough to incentivize people who probably have interest to install, but, you know, have not the budget or the logistics of hiring consultants and all that, all that work to do the prep work, the upfront work. You know, you talk a lot like an engineer. I am a civil engineer. I knew that. But you also talk like somebody who's familiar with information technology and you're trained in that too, aren't you? Yeah, I was an IT project manager for HECO for five years before I took this manager position. And yeah, I benefited from both background and connections for sure. And I'm still getting a lot of support from both our IT department and the operations department. Yeah, thank you. Well, you're the perfect combination. So let me, let me drill down on some of that. So I apply. I go to your Hermionelectric.com website and I apply for this charge up commercial pilot program. And can any business apply or are there, you know, specifications, parameters that determine which business qualify and maybe which stop. There are criteria we set up to prioritize. We have, you know, the funding is capped off. And we try to achieve as many sites as, you know, across a variety of properties to serve our community. We want to be fair. We want to, again, build out the back homes. We're not just there for the profit. We want to build out. So we've got a good combination of say shops and businesses or office buildings and condominiums or, you know, fleet and parking structures. Just so everybody has some charging level to charging stations ready for their tenants or customers across the islands or, you know, the city of course, so it's a Oahu, the big island and Maui. So that's our goal is to get a variety of participants as well as, you know, getting the feasible ones, the ones that are at reasonable costs so that money would go a long way. And that includes location, I suppose. Oh location location location. Yes. Okay. So, so I apply on electric your office determines that I'm on a good, I'm a good fit for the program for the pilot. And now I'm, I guess I have to identify a location on my property where this would go and work with you to what did you call the logistics so that you can, you can wire me up with transformers and the like, and, and is the right term stub me out. So that, you know, there's a, there's a connection for the charger but I buy the charger or you buy the charger. You buy the charger. And you operate the charger. We take care of the infrastructure. We maintain the infrastructure for 10 years. And then on the, on the make ready side as well. If we're handing to the site host so everything electricity. We take care of, and then on the charger side the site host operates. I just want to mention since you said it's expensive yet it isn't expensive and harder, more expensive and harder to do the make ready, because it's usually retrofit, you know, like an existing place existing condominium. It's, it's relatively easier when you have a new site, especially when we have the ordinances coming in place, you know, allocating how many EV charging stalls there should be so you can really plan it and build it out from the beginning. So that's what we're trying to do is to help people who have existing properties to make it possible to charge stations. Yeah. And so, and you're going to stop it out so that I can do fast charging. In other words, the, the, the electrical, electric that you provide will support a fast charging station. Actually for commercial make ready it's a level two. It's not a level three fast charging is level three. That's a different program we have. We actually own and operate the fast chargers. You know, it takes some, it's a little more complex to maybe a lot more complex to maintain the fast chargers and it's more expensive too. So that's another program we've been having for years and we continue to do. I'm a small business I can, I can apply for the level two under the charge up commercial pilot or I can maybe for a little more money I can get a level three fast charging connection from Hawaiian electorate right now. The fast charging program. Yes, you can apply on your own. You know, we don't. We don't have a make ready for fast chargers, but we have a program of fast chargers that is really good because we take care of everything. We take care of not just the make ready side. We actually procure and install and maintain the fast chargers, but we are capped off. That's actually a good segue to our public charging program. So we have this 929 stations existing so far. I have 26 sites. Some sites have to some sites have the potential of having an additional charger. But we don't really have room to grow there except for maybe adding a few second chargers that exist in sites because we're capped up on our pilot on the meter side. So we did file an expansion program with the public utility commission. We're waiting for the PCs review. I think they are currently reviewing and we're hoping to give you approval by next year sometime next year. Yeah. Well, if we're all collectively interested in improving, increasing the number of charging stations, you know, in Hawaii, then there's really no reason they wouldn't approve, right? It's just a matter of going through the process, whatever that process is and getting the approval in hand, right? That's what I'm preparing for, Jay. I'm always preparing for scaling, for expansion, because I mean, when we're doing pilots, we can't just think pilots, think existing. If we don't think for the expansion, if we don't have that in mind to say that's going to be the future, we're not going to operationalize and sustain, you know, we're setting up IT solutions and processes to support the 300. And I sure hope, you know, I think that PUC is reviewing and just they are, they're doing their logistics, trying to, you know, address, make sure we're doing things right, providing all the, you know, requirements and backup evidence for them to evaluate. Yeah. So one thing that strikes me from our discussion so far is that if and to the extent Hawaiian Electric wires up a given property, whatever arrangement, let's assume for this discussion, it's a charge-up commercial, and you put in transformers and you stub out or otherwise connect to a charging station device, that's an expense that can't be amortized over three years. You want it to stay a lot longer. You don't want to, you don't want to have to come at the end of three years and say, okay, we're taking it out now. Because you have a substantial investment, right? Yeah, and we want to invest more. We are an electric company. We're an utility company. So we have a key role in the decarbonization, the state's goal, the company's goal. We're there for the long run. So the pilots, you're right. The pilots are just for the learning. And as we learn from the pilots, we would know how to better design our program and also to set up the more effective ways of deployment and scaling. And yeah, we would toward the end of the pilots file for extension. Oh, okay. I want to cover that too. So you're learning during the period of the pilot that's three years and you're, you know, you're doing information technology and making a big database and writing a report about what you learned and so forth. And you're learning not only, you know, for the customers, you're learning for yourself. Because, you know, you have to handle the load and all that at certain times of the day because of the, you know, the midday rates and all. So my question is what exactly, I know this is, you don't have to give me the whole list of things, but what exactly is the primary lesson you're trying to have? What are you learning in the three year period that will help you go forward and that will help you service customers after the pilot? And will help you satisfy the PUC when you apply for an extension, you know, after the three years? Yeah, a lot of learning and actually establishing is about the processes, how we streamline the process to making it more efficient, how we integrate internally with our operations and technology processes and platforms. So we are part of the operations. We're fully taking advantage of what we have internally to support EOT. So it takes a village to raise a child and it's not just our company, within the company, we're setting up processes. We're working with the authority, you know, the HJs, you know, like Department of Planning and Permitting here and, you know, DPWs or other county agencies. So we're talking to the city and the state to see how we can help each other out in both the review process and the siting of the new charting stations. We all have the same goal of decarbonization and we all have the desire to put our stations out there at the locations that are aligned with our business goals, right? So yeah, that conversation is going on and, you know, will certainly continue and we're engaging with a lot of community, EV advocates and other, you know, private sectors. So it's, yeah, a lot of networking. One of the things in press release was about how somebody who participates, you know, in the charge-up commercial pilot will have the benefit of reduced rates. Can you talk about that? Do the rates vary between, say, an existing, maybe they don't vary, between an existing charging station that's on my business property or in my home, whatever, and the rates that would be charged under this new charge-up commercial pilot? Thanks. That's a good question. Our commercial make-ready program is coupled with the EDJ-ADQ, which are commercial rates. Those commercial rates, again, incentivize mid-day charging, you know, the charging during the day when our solar energy is abundant. So it should reduce, significantly reduce the electricity cost if you take advantage of that. And that's coupled with the commercial, charge-up commercial program. Okay. And the meter, separate meter needs to be installed for that. And the meter, we're deploying smart meters, right? The meters would collect the data and help us learn. So we have a few minutes left, and I would like to address with you the vision, okay? And when I say the vision, I mean, that's a second. The vision for one electric for the state, for that matter, for the PUC, about the future. You mentioned that ultimately, when you put all these programs together, you're looking for, what, 300 charging stations around, was it a walk-through or your area of operation? So that's for the public charging expansion that we are waiting for PUC approval. That is across our service territories. Again, Oahu, Maui and the Big Island. So it's about 60, 20, 20 in the percentage. So Oahu has a higher demand. And the other islands, we also have, you know, locations to, we also have numbers to expand. So you talk about expansion. So, you know, is there a point, and maybe there's no answer because you have to collect data first, but is there a point where we say, that is enough? That is sufficient. You don't need more charging stations right now. We're going to go on pause. Is there a point in the future where that happens? Actually, this number in our team came up with the 300, you know, 75 sites really, 75 sites, but 150 BC fast charging single ports and then 150 level two, just as a combination to, so they complement each other on certain sites. So it's based on a calculation, I think it's going to make up to about 28% of the charging stations needed by 2030, but according to the trend of EV adoption, that percentage could even be lower. So we're really just making up for a small fraction of the charging stations needed. So we are, you know, hoping that the private sectors would take advantage of our make ready programs and, you know, just expand on their side. So there is an app called plug share where you can go to and see out there in your community, what kind of charging stations and where they are on the community level. And you can go to EV map. That is a specific app to an internal app, but it's customer facing right to HECO public charging stations, fast charging stations. So a lot of people probably don't pay attention to that option on the EV map. It's actually on your HECO mobile app. A lot of customers are already using the HECO mobile app to pay their bills or report a power outage. Just scroll down to the bottom or swipe it to the very right side. You'll see it. There is the EV map and we update the EV map. The locations are there. The ones that are actively in use are on the EV map. And the status is also there. The most up-to-date status is on our EV map. And you can also go to the website, you know, Hawaiian Electric, slash code EV and then go to fast charging to find that map. So more data because this is going to allow you to identify which stations are getting how much traffic and which stations are more popular and so forth. And that allows you to create a new map going forward where you fill in the gaps. Yeah. We're using that. We're trying to set up those analytics on our side. So we can keep an eye out and analyze that. That's for sure. There's a lot of work behind the scenes that we're doing. Yeah, sure. It seems only logical. And we talked about a calculation before. I can see a calculation with the things that you and I have discussed. In other words, so you have more cars. You have more businesses that, you know, get into the pilot. You have, you know, information you get from the map. And you can lay out what you need going forward. And then you can actually plan around, you know, your current experience and all the learning experience that you have, both commercial and public. And then you can say, hmm, by this year we're going to need that many by that year, we're going to need that many and so forth. And before you know it, there are 50 people in your shop all working. We are certainly a group that's going to grow. So we're going to need you to help us. And then you can help us expand this out there and with you, the urge to serve the community. And yeah, we're doing our share to try to be out there and, and help you make it happen. Help alleviate the range of anxiety. And so I wanted to mention that the, because the commercial, it has recently launched. If you don't know where to go to submit your application, the website is Hawaiian Electric slash ChargeUp Commercial. That's reasonable. Okay, before we go, I'd just like you to itemize the programs about both pilots and existing programs that are available to the public and to the driver of an EV right now today, so that we have a list of them. What is that list in terms of the programs by which Hawaiian Electric is trying to incentivize charging stations and thus electric vehicles? Okay, thanks. So there are three levers. We have EV rates. So people, even residential customers can take advantage of the EV rates. And then we have the public charging program that we own and operate chargers. And then we have the making programs, and of which we have two, one is ChargeUp EVUs, one is ChargeUp Commercial, that we both are in implementation stage and we are taking applications. It's all about infrastructure. Building a new state that has charging station connections and thus electric vehicles, and it will come a time in the not-do-distance future where that's the only kind of car you can buy, so get ready. Yeah, the more we we put out there, the better it is because then we have some kind of redundancy, right? You're not counting on that one charger. You have more chargers and you have better chargers because the industry is evolving. The equipment that we found the best years ago may not be the best right now. So we keep evaluating, assessing technologies to buy the more state-of-art equipment as well. Well, if you didn't, who would? So you've got to. We want you to. And we want to check back with you, Ying Wei. We want to check back with you from time to time and see how it's the ThinkTech pilot on the Hawaiian Electric pilot. We'll check back with you and see how it's going, see how the numbers have changed, see how the programs have changed and see how far we have gotten onto our goals. Really appreciate you doing this and coming on the show and telling us about it, Ying Wei. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity. I would love to share lessons learned with you. I'm also a project manager as a background, so it's all about transparency, about learning as we go. Thank you, Ying Wei. Aloha. Thank you. Aloha.