 Welcome to Think Tech, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech, and Hawaii. I'm Nicole Horie. And I'm Elise Anderson. In our show this time, we'll cover the 2017 Kauai Energy Conference that took place at the Kauai Marriott Resort. We'll take a look at some of the tracks and sessions there and talk to some of the many energy experts, executives and officials who attended. We went to Kauai a few months ago and made a movie about it. Our hosts were KAUC, the Kauai Island Utility Co-op, and Beth Tokioka, KAUC's Director of Communications. So, as you would expect, we learned a lot about energy. The movie is posted on our YouTube channel and you can see it there. On that earlier trip, while we were talking with Ben Sullivan, Energy and Sustainability Coordinator for Kauai County, he told us about this conference and suggested we come. So, courtesy of the Kauai Economic Development Board, KEDB, we went there on June 19th and found it was absolutely worth our while to do so. Kauai is a very fitting place for such a conference, particularly because Kauai and KAUC have made such great strides in renewable energy policy, planning and action. We need conferences like this on the neighbor islands. Like those, the Maui Economic Development Board has been organizing over the last few years. The conference was attended by representatives of business and government and other community leaders. The theme of the conference was to educate, collaborate and accelerate, and it was dedicated to building on the most recent developments in clean energy and energy efficiency in the Kauai energy landscape and across the state. The conference featured a full day of energy presentations and discussions with tons of networking opportunities. It was very aloha and very instructive for anyone interested in developing or learning about the development of clean energy in Hawaii. Whereas the decision by the administration of President Donald Trump to withdraw from the press coming accord is an abandonment of American leadership and a threat to the island communities. I said it. My administration joins all throughout the counties. We did. Governor Ige, CEO of the Office of Wine Affairs and all of them recently, a statewide commitment with six ambitious goals to achieve, to be achieved by 2030. We're committed to 100% renewable energy future, working to reduce our emissions from county facilities and fleets. And I dedicated to continuing on the Paris path to fill the void of federal leadership by local governments and cities and mayors across this nation, including Governor Ige and everybody else, the legislature and every mayor and county throughout the state of Hawaii. Now therefore, I, Bernard Picovalo Jr., mayor of the county of Kauai State of Hawaii to hereby commit to join the mayor's national climate action agenda. And we're still in initiative, which includes the U.S. Climate Change Alliance, enjoying the mayor's national climate action agenda, the county of Kauai commits to pursue actions to achieve an emissions reduction target through, number one, students, young people, developing a community greenhouse gas inventory. Number two, setting near and long-term goals targeted to reduce emissions. And number three, developing a climate action plan signed, aligned with the city's target. This pledge connects the county of Kauai to a network of over 200 U.S. mayors representing over 50 million Americans who are working together to strengthen local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support efforts for binding federal and global level policy making done. Everybody clap. For all of you just to let you know that the Department of Education fully supports the mayor's initiatives and everyone's efforts here. Mayor Bernard Kovar Ho Ho 2020, the vision he has for the Kauai county is part of our academic or innovation plan for all schools and also for the context area. So believe me, all the efforts, building capacity, clean energy, clean, whatever it is, it is what we're looking for for our students here as far as performance tasks to be problem solvers, critical thinkers in this area. So thank you so much students, you are the leaders, and we'll make Kauai and the world better. So first of all I want to actually thank the mayor for his courage and for his leadership in this incredibly important initiative. And KCC is right there with you mayor, not only through our own institution since we are a large institution that need to worry about our own greenhouse emissions but also through education in which we will help not only the youth but the adults in this community move forward and also be willing to do demonstration projects and explore new technologies as we move forward. So we really are excited about being part of this positive movement. Mahalo. Thank you so much to everyone that came. I am so glad to see that everyone is actually here and everyone actually believes that this is a problem that we have to solve because it doesn't matter what's happening on a national level, it's what us as individuals do. And I am so glad that we actually took the initiative to actually sign the proclamation and we are doing all these things. Thank you very much. Moving forward to 2011 and 2013 we started with our first utility scale solar project, the Kapaa solar field, one megawatt back then it was the biggest solar field in the state, the first utility scale one done in the state. Started with that we moved forward 2013, six times that size in partnership with Alexander Baldwin at Port Allen, a purchase power agreement for a six megawatt photovoltaic facility that also had three megawatts of batteries which become more and more of our stories as we go along. You know one thing I always appreciate about David Bissell, I served with him when I had an opportunity to work on the KIOC board is that he's very efficient and so thank you David for getting through your presentation so quickly. I really enjoyed hearing about it, I hope you all did as well. I'm going to try to be equally efficient. I have the wonderful job of introducing our next keynote speaker, Kate Gordon who is a senior advisor at the Paulson Institute and you know I think we have this really unique opportunity in listening to Kate this morning to hear what is happening in the national conversation and how businesses and communities and policy makers are thinking about climate change. My own work for the last three or four years has been talking to one specific group of people from their own culture which is the culture of business. I've spent the last couple years and I'll talk about it working as the founding director of and then the lead author on something called the Risky Business Project and really the point of that project has been to bring climate risk and opportunity issues to the mainstream business and investment community. The talks that followed were on three tracks, electricity, transportation and low carbon future. The first track included sessions on managing electricity costs and PV for your business. The second included sessions on accelerating EVs and transforming the fleets and the third included sessions on taking KAUC to 100% renewables and 21st century utilities for Kauai. These three tracks continued in the afternoon and included working sessions on keeping the lights on, clean transportation and the Kauai Climate Action Plan. KAUC is continuing to hit it out of the park so we are thrilled to be watching all the action at KAUC and supporting them in whatever way we can whether it's energy efficiency projects or renewable energy projects and batteries and solar, it's awesome to see. And then finally, you know, I'm really happy that we're opening up a more engaging conversation on climate change itself. But sometimes in Hawaii, we kind of skip that part of the conversation and I think certainly it's an important one. So we've got to be looking at risk, we've got to be looking at reducing our emissions across all sectors and we've got to be thinking about what's going to happen anyway. What are some of the inevitable impacts that we need to prepare for? There's no aspect of this conference that we don't touch on a daily basis. So obviously it took energy to get us out from Oahu to Kauai. So we're already chatting with Hawaiian Airlines are here today, hotels, second big industry in Hawaii. So very important sector to look at their energy costs and management. And so it's really just to see what Kauai is doing and the great work that KAUC is doing to sort of push the bar that we can all learn from. I'm interested in electronic vehicles. And I have a electronic bike, tricycle actually, that gets 11, it'll go 18 to 33 miles depending on hills and dales and the rider. It's got a lithium ion phosphorus battery and it's got like 24 inch rear wheels so you can go right through regular doors. And I have a 3000, well 3K photovoltaic system and that allows me to charge up my lithium ion phosphorus bike battery for free. I'm here as an end user for the county, one of the largest diesel users in the county. So we're here to try to figure out ways for us to partner with all of the other players in the renewable energy sector to find ways to serve our community but not have the negative health effects. We have zero electric vehicles, we have one hybrid diesel vehicle right now, but working with Ben Sullivan, you know, as part of the renewables portfolio for the county, we're looking at that methane project from the dump. I'm here to soak up the efforts being made by the county of Kauai and the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and promoting renewable energy. Now you need to set up structures that try to make it a high priority to charge during, in this case, the middle of the day when we have an excess solar surplus. I'll be speaking about PVs in regards to business, commercial application, so just kind of walking through the technical aspects and the processes for businesses to be connecting PV. We normally separated between commercial businesses and residential, so this talk will primarily be for the commercial side of it. I think it's fabulous. I think that their progress towards their goal is 50% by 2023. That's renewable energy for stationary uses and they're well on their way. My question is, what is their plan to get to 100% for Kauai? I think it reflects their better decision-making process, that they're small enough and they can assess what the opportunities are that are available to them in a way that they're able to make decisions more quickly and act on them. I'm here because I'm so proud of Hawaii that not only were we the first nation, the first state in the nation, we should be the first nation, but you know, that's not going so well right now, to have 100% RPS, but now we have a bill that just got signed by Governor E. Gay to support and continue with the Paris Accord. And okay, I know that it's going to be tough and all that, but just buck up, stop complaining and I'm just really proud of us. So that's mostly why I'm here. Another reason, so I'm speaking on a panel, it's PV for your business. So I'm all about brass tacks, like what can you do? It kind of ironically, I've been asked to speak about policy, which can try saints. But that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to talk about the legislature, I'm going to talk about money, and I'm going to talk about the tariffs here on KIEC and what you could do for your business if you want to invest in renewables, be part of this green revolution, and be a good citizen. I'm here to see what they have to offer today. It looks like they have a lot of interesting people. I really appreciated the last presenter and how she presented what some people see as kind of the missing link, which is the financial aspects of climate change and a lot of people who may not believe that humans have any impact on the climate whatsoever. I think we have a lot of steps that very wise people, such as this, have laid out, have said, you know, we can switch to renewable energies, we can switch to better vehicles, we can do things like riding our bikes more, make streets safer for alternative methods of transportation. I think that there's a lot that you can implement far more easily in a small place like Kauai than you can in a large scale metropolis area. Well, I think the point that was made was that, you know, we've already been on the path to do this and that it's somewhat easier for us because with the cost of energy, we've been moving ahead. And it's not something that you have to sell to your customers or sell to your communities. For the most part, when you're switching to renewables, you're getting a more stable price over the long term. And so you kind of get a two for you, get a more stable price and you also get to feel good about doing your part for climate change or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. What we've shown to other utilities, and we have utilities coming out here all the time, is that this can be done and it can be done without bringing your system to the edge of collapse and it can be done in a way that you're able to keep the lights on and you're able to make the financial case for it as well. And I think a lot of utilities just in the last couple of years have come around to believing, yeah, if we put a pretty good amount of renewables on our system, we can make it work because they've been making it work in Hawaii. I've briefly touched on the hydro energy over there in Waimea. Obviously our environmental reporter, Jessica Elsie, normally covers these types of events, but I'm filling in for her today. I've also covered, I've done adventures about the initiative with Tesla over there in Anahola. That was remarkable and that's something that I'll probably never forget. You know, it's interesting that we're going to be investing $400 million more. But in the long run, that's going to be pennies to the amount of money we're going to be saving here on the Garden Island of Kaua'i. You know, adaptation to what's already baked into the system and a lot of that is seed level rise, frankly, through emissions we've already put out there and then resilience on those things and then also looking to the future. So how do you think about being resilient but also think about designing for a low carbon future? You know, I think what's interesting about Kaua'i and Hawaii sort of generally is that unlike a lot of places I speak where there's no economic imperative to switch over away from fossil fuels, here there really is. So you see a lot of action on that transition because it makes so much economic sense, right? This is the first year, both here and at Verge, that there's a hydrogen panels breakout and even the upcoming a prize conference at Pei Kampuzan, we finally got hydrogen into that too. So we're kind of on a roll this year with hydrogen, so it's exciting for me because, you know, I kind of like hydrogen. You know, it's a lot of fun going to the legislature and beating your head against the wall trying to get funding. I mean, the excitement is just too much to really pass up. But, you know, after a couple of years it wears off, the excitement wears off and you figure, you really need to just make a business case and get a bunch of business people to go do it. I think the students, the younger generation, should be able to see what's going on, see what the future is and hopefully some of them will work towards what we're talking about in here. There's so many things going on actually in the world and you have some older people like me and my brain is still at 20 years old. I wish I was back around 40 and come up with these ideas on how to generate electricity. Of course, I'm somebody that likes the underwater, the hydro power. We have a number of benefits as a utility cooperative. We're owned by our members. We don't need to make a profit. We don't need to build things in order to get a better return. We have an association with the Federal Rural Utilities Service, which gives us access to low-cost capital. We had an aging fossil fuel-based infrastructure. We had to do something. When I came on the board, we were looking at building another big fossil fuel plant. And as a board, we looked at that and we finally set that aside. To me, the bottom line is that, yes, climate change is a thing. Yes, there's global warming and yes, this island's going to be really threatened by that along with all our endemic species. So to me, definitely conservation and climate change are huge. That's a huge deal. And today, kind of what we've been talking about is how to, in some way, how to deal with that. And that's really important to me. And I think I would say to all of us, because we all live on this island, we all value it very much and none of us want to see it vanish. I think being at this event was a real eye-opener to see the major steps that Kauai as a community is taking to really address these issues of climate change. Because, as Emily said, it is a problem. It is an issue and we really have to face them head on. These situations, these risks, they are indeed real. And it is very important that we are taking action against it also with the youth because this is our future that we're going to be in charge of soon in just a couple of years. The bottom line is that this is a really important issue and that the community, at least our community, is really trying to get together to solve this. And that's pretty amazing, in my opinion. And I think that one thing to definitely keep in mind is the fact is that the youth really does care. Well, things are changing and they're changing rapidly. There's major organizations around the world that are putting money and efforts into these resources. And I mean, at the end of the day, what it boils down to is with electric vehicles, with autonomous vehicles and mobility as a service, I mean, there's a real likelihood that my two and a half year old son will never need to drive a car and never drive a car in his entire life. Fundamental challenge, I think that a lot of people will face is just the social normalization of EVs. So right now, if you go to Honolulu, actually, you see EVs everywhere. It seems like every third car is a Tesla or a Nissan Leaf. There's not quite that many here on Kauai yet. And so fewer people are exposed to them. They're not as readily available at dealerships and whatnot. With the magic power of our live view remote broadcasting equipment, we did our regular bi-weekly Mina, Marco and Me, energy news talk show from the conference with Mina Morita, former legislator and chair of the PUC, and Marco Mangelsdorf of Provision Solar and Helo, who called in from the Big Island. We're still more of a wannabe co-op than a real one in terms of we don't have generating assets or infrastructure and we're still waiting patiently for the opportunity to see if there's a willing seller on the part of Hawaiian electric companies to see about parting with Hawaii Electric Light Company so that we can go from a wannabe co-op to a real co-op and join our brothers and sister friends at the Kauai Island Utility Co-op that have been making wonderful things happen for the past, what, 15 or so years. Our two speakers this morning were excellent. We had Michael Chang and you might have- Hawaiian Electric. Yeah, in the customer service area. And, you know, he mostly spoke about data analytics, you know, and not only taking your meter information but also taking different sources of data, you know, to get a complete view of your business. At 2 p.m., we did another remote broadcast from the conference, this time featuring some of the energy industry members and attendees we met there. We're very happy to work with the Kauai Economic Development Board to help put on this conference. There's a lot of partners involved, the County of Kauai and many others. It's a great conference. I think we've done three or four of these. They're not done every single year but I do recall the first one. It was quite a number of years ago. Back when we were really struggling as an island to make a dent in renewables. And so there were a lot of challenges at that time. There was a lot of focus on how we were gonna do this and now we fast forward to today. It's still a great conference but there's so much to celebrate to talk about how much progress we've made in the last eight years or so. And then where the challenges still lie because there still are some challenges for us even though we're doing some really good things in renewables in terms of the grid and bringing more solar and hydro and biomass. But we still have a lot of challenges. So it's a great opportunity for, we appreciate KEDB being the convener and all of us supporting to bring everybody together to talk about this stuff and see where we can go. All in all, the conference was excellent. Well organized, well attended and of great value to attendees and therefore likely to be repeated next year. After all, Kauai has done well in building its clean energy infrastructure and there is much to be learned from Kauai and KIUC and for that matter from all the people who came from other islands to attend. It works well for the members of the industry to know each other and collaborate in bringing the state together on clean energy. Indeed, if we want the state to reach its clean energy goals, we absolutely need to work together to share our best practices, lessons and experiences. This conference was a good example of how that can be done. If you want to know more about the 2017 Kauai Energy Conference or the Kauai Economic Development Board, check out KEDB.org. If you want to know more about KIUC, check out KIUC.coop. And if you want to know more about Kauai County in general, check out Kauai.gov. And now let's take a look at our Think Tech calendar of events going forward. There's so much happening in Hawaii. Sometimes things happen under the radar and we don't hear much about them, but Think Tech will take you there. 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And of course, the tech and energy conferences that take place on the neighbor islands. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Nicole Horry. And I'm Elise Anderson. Aloha, everyone.