 Okay, we're live. We're back. I'm Jay Fidel here on Think Tech, and we're doing more about energy. Hawaii is the state of clean energy with the Energy Policy Forum. My co-host is Meena Merida of Energy Dynamics, and if you didn't know, she used to be the chair of the Public Utilities Commission, and she used to be a legislator and the chair of the Energy Committee, and the state has to represent for about 200 years. Not quite. Not quite. Just 15. Okay, and our special guest today is Fred Riddell, and he's the Energy Commissioner from Maui County, joins us by Skype. So, welcome to the show, Fred. Oh, thank you. Great to have you here. Hey, so Fred, I understand that you became the Energy Commissioner May 2016, so can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up on Maui? Sure, yeah. I started in power actually as a young person on submarines. I started in nuclear power pushing submarines through the water, and then after that was doing nuclear power consulting, and then following that did more work in energy research, and ultimately started developing solar power plants most recently with a company out of Spain. And I was coming to Maui for many years, trying to do large-scale solar projects since about 2007 or 2008. And from that time, I wasn't very successful here on Maui, but we did do some very large projects on the mainland. And coming to see the mayor about a year and a half ago, he was looking for people to do a study about utility ownership. Ultimately, Guernsey was awarded that. And after that, once that report was released, I spoke with the mayor again, told him that I'd be interested in helping to try to find or look towards the direction that he wants to go in and see if I could help. And he asked me to come out here and be the Energy Commissioner. So that's how I got here. Great. Outstanding. So what does training in nuclear submarines and in nuclear energy mean? How does it relate to renewable energy? I mean, although some people have said, including myself, that all energy is the same anyway, it's all out of the natural environment one way or the other. True. But how does it relate in terms of your way of looking at things? Sure. Well, I think if you looked around the energy field, you'll actually find a lot of people that came from Navy nuclear power. Many people throughout the utility here in Hawaii, throughout all utilities around the country, people that are doing solar projects, wind. What that really taught me and what helped me in my career starting there was learning about making very reliable energy that works every time that you can be sure is going to start. And of course, on a submarine, be able to go fast or slow as needed. So. Oh, great. Great. Well, you know, there's a whole mindset about all of that. So tell us, you know, it's your anniversary now in May or it will be soon in sometime in May of 2017, your first year anniversary. How exciting. How has it been? Can you give us a pricey about how it's how life has been for you in in energy in Maui? Well, I think where I wanted to start from is I had a lot of learning to do, meeting people, understanding the landscape, understanding the issues. And really, I'm pretty far away from understanding all of it because there's such a deep history that so many people know better than me. But what I'm trying to bring, though, in this first year is an understanding, looking at it from a perspective, perhaps that not being steeped in it, but steeped in energy in general. And so what I have seen for sure is that there are a lot of people committed to bringing, you know, good solutions for the utility, of course, is trying to move programs forward. We saw that there was a large amount of rooftop portable tags that did come onto the grid, meaning, of course, knows well about that. And now we see where are they going next with his power supply improvement plan that they released? And then how will they evolve to 2045 to get to 100% renewable energy, but also hopefully a resilient and reliable system along the way? In a general sense, Fred, you know, how do you see Maui as against other counties, other islands in the state? Is Maui, you know, especially interested in clean energy? Do you feel it's a leading county? Do you feel it's ahead or behind of other counties? And do you feel its attitude, its attitude, you know, from a governmental point of view and a community, a community, you know, feeling point of view is different ahead or behind or different than other islands? I think that's hard to say exactly. I think everyone on the islands here is very interested in energy because it makes up a big portion of their electric bill. And when you get that every month, you get that reminder, you get a reminder that we need to really continue to work hard to improve those things. And this is really where the mayor was pushing. Originally is how do we get to a better system in the long run, whether it's with the current utility, whether it's other policies to be put in place, or other ownership structures. From the county's perspective, you know, I've seen the other counties that they do well. And you know, what we are doing here on Maui that I think a lot of people have taken notice to was a Jump Smart Maui program. That was a great program that brought in a lot of electric vehicles, Hitachi and Nissan participating in that with the utility and with the state and many, many stakeholders, including MEDB, to understand not only can electric vehicles be a part of transportation from an energy standpoint, but also they were learning about controlling the grid of virtual power plants and other aspects that perhaps electric vehicles can do. And so that from that perspective, I think the county is doing well. And I think on a per capita basis, the island of Maui in particular has probably the largest electric vehicle fraction of all the counties there, they're probably ahead. That's great. The in other areas, everybody's pretty much on par, you know, where the utility is the main supplier or the supplier of electricity on the island. So we're moving with them and trying right now to find ways to advance and be ahead and demand response and other programs that are going to come up soon. So the the first program or the programs in the last so many years, like five years were affordable tax. And a lot of that has been done. But now the grid really needs some other attention and reliability. And the utility could make investments and and could keep a stable grid. But if they work more in the demand response side, we might be able to find a way to advance and have a more flexible and reliable grid by actually implementing these other programs and utilizing, let's say investments that are already on the island to do just that. I hope that, you know, if Maui County can lead that and get ahead there, that we'll, you know, see some benefit from that, perhaps find ways to make it effective faster. So I'm sorry. Go ahead. So Fred, so are you referring to what could happen with the Department of Water and wastewater treatment facilities? Using absolutely. Yeah. So any any update on county energy projects? I know there was a desire to facilitate a bio energy facility. Well, I mean, I forget the name of the company. But and also, you know, there was an aggressive move to upgrade county buildings for efficiency. So what's the status on those kinds of projects? Well, there are a few projects that are still in the works. Of course, the first one you were mentioning there was a project to work with the landfill for an energy project with Energia. That project is still moving forward. Perhaps it can move forward more quickly. In the last year, the project that I was more involved with was another one where Energia was awarded that contract, which was to create a a biogas to run gas turbines at the Kahlua wastewater treatment plants. And that would be made from an energy crop that that waste heat from that would then dry a sludge to take care of about 24,000 tons of sludge per year that comes from all three of the larger wastewater treatment plants sort of fixing or working with two issues at the same time. And so that project is a current one that we're hoping moves forward. The county did execute that contract. The provider needs to meet certain requirements, of course, to move forward. One of those of course is permitting and financing and interconnection and all of those aspects. So we hope that that of course moves forward. The other ones that we're working on currently, and I think this is where some of the islands are of course ahead of Maui, has been in lighting in LED lighting to reduce the load from street lighting. And so the county is working on that. And that was proposed in the budget that hopefully we will see that improvement plans, the capital improvement plan move forward. And that will be about a savings of about $700,000 per year with a payback in the four to five year time period. So it could really be an improvement there. And of course, I think the important part there is it takes away from load that occurs coincident with the peak now that occurs when everybody gets home. And if we keep on driving that peak higher, we're going to have to invest more to deal with that. So drawing that peak back in the middle of the evening would be a great thing. So those are the current things we have going. You know, a lot of the projects you mentioned existed before you came on. And I'm wondering what projects are on your desk? And what what are the projects you really like and love? And that you're, you know, shepherding to to completion? Well, the primary thing that I'm trying to shepherd through or let's say start is that one of the results of the Guernsey report that was done by the county to understand utility ownership arrived at a conclusion that perhaps the county should look at an independent system operator model, something that you see on the mainland in many areas. This I looked at and said, Well, gosh, how could we actually start this? After talking to many people around Hawaii and learning more about it in 2012, there was a law put into place called the Hawaii Electricity Reliability Administrator Law. This would put an entity or or be this entity would be given the authority from the PUC to oversee the requirements for interconnection and for reliability. And for me, that's really a start of an independent system operator. It's another entity that would let's say be like a system advocate. And that's the main thing that I'm trying to move forward because I see in five years in 10 years, some period of time, a different structure is going to be needed, where other players can come into the market, where we have more of a transactive energy environments, and without another entity overseeing that and having, you know, good credible institutional knowledge about what the grid needs and how the grid can evolve, it'll be hard for change to occur. And I think that that is top on my list. Well, that's really interesting. I mean, we talking before in the previous show with Jeff McElnina and Leslie Cole Brooks, you know, about about leadership and and about the possibility of an authority which was considered for a while by Neil Abercrombie. But and it sounds like this whole thing about the county, the county it's an authority, isn't it? It's a county authority. It's authorized by the PUC. Sorry, it wouldn't be a county authority. Ultimately, what I'm trying to move forward is an understanding and let's say a book of knowledge about how that entity could look. And then someone from has to become that entity, definitely wouldn't be the county, it wouldn't be the county's place. But it is our place to try to foster a better economic environment. And I think that that itself would be that mechanism. It's the evolution of the utility business model into serving more as a platform, rather than or, you know, a platform rather than a pipeline, just for the delivery of electricity. Is that a step on the way to a county, county operated utility? No, I don't think so. I think even if you had a county operated utility or co op, the way I understand the law is that that this entity would still be in charge of those aspects of the grid. So as me as mentioned, it's sort of like having someone be knowledgeable about the platform and understanding how that platform has to expand or or change over time. You know what, Mina, I think I think it's time for us to take a break and I'd like you to I'd like to you to call a break. Okay, could you would you do that? Let's take a break. I knew she would say that. Howie Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday at 3pm on think tech Hawaii. We talk about things of interest to those of us who live here. And my past blogs can be found at howie lucas.com. Hi, I'm Carol Cox. I'm the new host of Eyes on Hawaii. Make sure you stay in the know on Hawaii. Join us on Tuesdays at 12 noon. We will see you then Aloha. Okay, we're back on think tech Hawaii, the state of clean energy with Fred Riddell. He's the energy commissioner for Maui County. And my co host, Mina Morita of Energy Dynamics formerly chair of the PUC. And we're talking about talking about Maui Maui County, the state of clean energy in Maui. And one of the things that come up during the break was Gee, Lenai, and Molokai, for that matter, they are part of Maui County. You had a question about that. Basically, Fred, you know, is there anything happening on Maui, I mean, Molokai or Lenai that you are involved in? Sure. Well, I'm just starting to look at those deeper to understand what the county can do there. The for Molokai specifically. Well, I think you may have saw in the power supply improvement plan, the utility is looking to bring that island to 100% renewable much sooner, and perhaps by 2020. I think there, of course, what's important to me is that that isn't just an experiment that makes that island more expensive. And we want to find ways to work with the utility to make that a success. So specifically, there are two areas that I was looking at most recently, trying to work with the utility to identify locations for electric vehicle charging. There isn't public charging available there. There are good locations. So and there are there's about I think I looked at the state data about it's not a big number, but 17 electric vehicles and 19 hybrid vehicles on Molokai. So soon there will probably be a stoplight with that number. But I think so that's an important one. This other one that I wanted to look at this year for both are all three of the islands is community based renewable energy. I think that this you know, maybe a good way for a lot of people to get into renewable energy, perhaps get savings on their electric bill. And away and there's ways that the county can help with us. Two of them in particular, I think one is that the county could look at land that is otherwise not you know, valuable or its highest value would be renewable energy and putting in a project or allowing an entity to use that land for one of these projects and putting in requirements that portions of that project be set aside for lower or medium income people or people that otherwise can't get to renewable energy. I think that that's an important part that the county should be involved in and trying to help. Another one is although these projects are not going to be very large initially, and are not going to require a lot of financing, but the county can come up with ways to guarantee the revenues of that by backstopping the participation of the program, I think. And this is another area where I think the county can help on all three islands, you know, in renewable energy. And I did include in my budget for this year some studies in that area and some outreach to the public to understand what sort of community based renewable energy projects where they be interested in as a community. You know, just a few weeks ago you had the Maui Energy Conference, where a lot of people including some very senior energy executives came to Maui to hear the latest about energy in general, but especially including energy and Maui. How did that go? Were you involved in organizing that for it? Well, I was I did organize one of the panels on energy storage, which is an area that, you know, I'm very excited about. But I think the conference was a great success overall. It really did bring in a lot of different ideas across the spectrum of energy, looking at environmental issues, looking at new technologies, and looking at, you know, customer engagement. And so I think it was it was definitely a great success. And I was very pleased with what we were able to bring forward for energy storage. Well, Genie Scott was also involved, I know, with MEDB. And I'm wondering, is this is this something that you're going to carry forward that Maui will carry forward, even though she retired recently? You plan to continue these conferences on an annual basis every spring? Absolutely. We did include it, of course, in our budget to help fund that. The conference did have another increasing number of participants. I believe it was somewhere between 350 and 380 people, you know, higher than last year, which was higher than the year prior. So it is a conference that's bringing a lot of people to the island from an economic standpoint, helping there to stimulate things. And it's actually unique discussion that you don't always see on every other energy location. Okay, I have a question. Do you have a role in the development of biofuels, especially with the closure of HC&S? I saw a little blurb about the sunflowers being in bloom. So that's our tagline today. The sunflowers are in bloom. At the moment, there's not a lot that I'm doing in that. But of course, I've been past that area and the sunflowers are out there. It's a wonderful site to see. And Pacific Biodiesel's project, I hope, goes very well. It's, I think in the in the long run, what we're going to see is there is value to the system to have biofuels available. This was something I was talking about for energy storage at the conference is that you need a mix of resources that give you the resiliency to come back and the reliability that you're going to have energy available when you need it. Some of that you're going to get through wind, the right mix of wind, the right mix of solar and energy storage. But there are going to be times, let's say this last weekend on Maui, where you're going to have two, three, four days of no sun, low resource, and you're going to need other ways to produce energy. And one of those, of course, can be biofuels. I think it's going to be an important mix and something that we need to continue to figure out how to make that perfectly relevant in the system. Well, we visited Kauai just a couple of weeks ago and we saw the Tesla facility that was built there. That's not the only one. They're going to build another one, too. It's bigger or bigger in Kauai. They have a contract with AES. Yes, AES, right, the coal company, wasn't it? Anyway, they do a lot of energy. And so Tesla is an interesting example. In fact, while we were there, we met a woman from Molokai, that's your county, who was talking with Tesla about the possibility of doing some kind of storage in Molokai with them. So, you know, it seems to me that that's the kind of project that would solve the problem. Their Tesla, the Tesla project, is huge, actually. As I recall, it was 50, 4,400 or 50, 54,000 panels. It was huge. It's a lot of panels. But I think the difference here is Kauai has quick start generators. So, you know, should there be inclement whether they're where the batteries aren't being charged up? I mean, they have the ability to start up their generators pretty quick. So, you know, there's always that backup for reliability. Well, Kauai has had an interesting and instructive experience, I think, and probably of interest to all the neighbor islands. And for that matter, to Oahu, their people do not want to have wind, however. And that's different in Maui because you started wind early on with first wind there up in the mountains. And I saw that project right after it was done. I was very impressed with that. And then Ula Palakua, too, you have some wind there, although there was a there was a something, something failed in one of the, what do you call it, cupola on the top of the wind, the wind tower. And so the question is, where does wind fit in the plan, if you will, the county plan for Maui? You have a number of installations. It's been a successful contributor to the grid. People in other islands may not like it so much. Do you like it? Do you see a future for it? Do you see more wind coming soon for Maui? Well, my most recent work being in solar, I'm a little partial, but I think really what we're seeing is whether or not which ones that's more competitive from a cost standpoint and which one has the best environment, the best environmental outlook. Right now, I believe the the latest solicitation on Kauai did have an open RFO for wind or solar. It could have been any resource to do this AES project that was awarded. But ultimately, solar was awarded at a phenomenally low price, I believe it was 11 cents flat for 25 years, which is fantastic. That what I guess beat out wind. So what we're seeing is, you know, an economic an economic portion playing out here that there is a resource and then which one is going to actually be, you know, the best result. I think when the utility is going to go out and ask for new resources, hopefully soon, they're going to have to do that in an open way and say, this is a need that we have. I have to cover this amount of energy. I need to have this amount of firm or flexible generation and then let everybody bring to the table the best solutions. And hopefully that that's the way it will play out. And my guess right now, given that what I've seen even from the time that the AES project was awarded till now just five five months later, the panel prices for solar projects is continuing to drop. And then what we're seeing in energy storage is the energy storage portion is on the same sort of trajectory as portable tanks were that are dropping dramatically. And I think what companies are now seeing is that they these resources, if you need to cover a certain need like a peaking capacity in the evening, can beat or be more cost-effective than even a reciprocating engine or a gas turbine. And so that sort of change in the market is is is you know, something new, you know, that level of competition in this last year that we're seeing is going to be the future. And so whether it's wind or solar, I think we're going to have to see what works best, of course, for the community and get the community's involvement. Yeah, that's a really important point to make that, you know, we don't pick winners, but we articulate what kinds of services are going to be required and lay out that framework that people compete in rather than picking technology or resource. I can never forget, Mina, that you have you have been the chair of the PUC. And sometimes you make policy statements like that. And I remember so well that those are the things you said when you were the chair. I'm consistent. I think we're out of time. There's other things we'd like to talk about for sure. And we'd like to catch you again, Fred, in the same way. I really enjoy this conversation. I think you've made a great and important statements about the status of clean energy and Maui. Thank you so much for doing that. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thanks so much. We'll talk soon. Aloha.