 We're back four o'clock rock. If you were thinking this is Hawaii the state of clean energy, you were absolutely right. My co-host, Mina Marina, chair of the House Energy Committee for 13 years, and then chair of the PUC for another four or five, four years. And now Energy Dynamics. She's my co-host today. And our special guest is Terry Searles. He's the interim director of the Hawaii State Energy Office in D-Bed. And finally we have David Aquino, who's from Blue Planet Foundation. And he's going to talk us about, tell us about a deal he's made with Hawaii Energy. Okay, so welcome to you all. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well then, David go first because he's got a movie. If you guys had movies, we'd let you go first too. Yeah, so thanks for having me, Jay. As you know, Blue Planet Foundation, our mission is to clear the path for 100% clean energy. Within that umbrella of clean energy, we feel that energy efficiency is the bridge to get there. So we recently partnered with Hawaii Energy on a campaign called Small Kind Ridiculous. Why is that? Small Kind Ridiculous. I thought you said Small Kind Ridiculous. It is. Small Kind Ridiculous. And that's the name of your website, smallkindridiculous.org. You're the director of innovation. You must have come up with that, right? Yeah, yeah. We definitely brainstormed and together we came up with this concept. And what we're trying to do is get people to be smarter with their energies. It's obvious in our daily lives that waste is ridiculous when it comes to wasting water or wasting money. But we don't usually think the same thing about energy. And that's why we created the campaign, Small Kind Ridiculous. And actually, we'll just roll the video right now and you can see what's going on. Okay, let's see the video. Here we go. It's obvious that waste is ridiculous. Why don't we think the same about wasting energy? Find out how you can be smarter with your energy at smallkindridiculous.org. Wow, that's really a funny movie. David, what do you want to tell us about that movie now? So by watching that, you can see there's a lot of ridiculous actions going on. You know, just one swipe of the surf wax, just over pouring that syrup. We had to anti-wrapping the musabee with way too much surround wrap. So it's obvious that those actions are ridiculous and wasteful, right? But a lot of times we don't think the same way about energy. And at the end you saw the couple leave the house, leave all the lights on. So we really want people to just be smarter with their energies and try to see it in a different light. You know, and there's a little more to our message as well. Right now we have a website and it's called smallkindridiculous.org. And we're encouraging people to visit the website, check out the video, you know, look at the energy tips, but then also make the pledge to be less ridiculous and smarter with your energy. So if you go to smallkindridiculous.org, take the pledge, you'll actually be entered to win a GoPro Hero Session that we're pledging on. Alright, that's not so much small kind ridiculous. That's valuable. Yeah, that's big kind smart. So the end of the month actually today is the last day to pledge and be entered into the raffle. So go ahead and visit smallkindridiculous.org. Okay, and it's not the last time we're going to play that video because I really like that video. Can we play it again? Thank you so much for coming around. It's valuable, funny, useful, and it's going to change the way people think. Good for you. Thank you. Aloha. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. We'll get to it with Peter Searles. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I'm the host of Shrink Rap Hawaii where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this. We must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. What? It's not Peter. It's charity. How could you let me do that? Whatever. So what does it mean to be the interim executive director or rather, what is it, director of the Hawaii State Energy Office? What does it mean? Okay. So before I get into that, I want to give a commercial for David because to me energy efficiency is critical for meeting our goals. And I think that if we just think only in terms of renewables while being either wasteful from a conservation standpoint, which is what that slide, that little presentation was all about, we're not thinking about new ideas, new building envelopes, new energy efficiency appliances, new technologies that allow us to do a better job with demand response. I mean, it will be tough getting to meeting the 100% goal. And I think if it's a lot easier to meet the 100% goal, if we're driving down our, in this terms, the electricity use. So I really appreciated that little video. It was a lot of fun and it was spot on. Well, let me ask you, how much of the 100% goal is energy efficiency? Well, you know, if you think about the original, this is when Mina and I were around in 2008 when we were wearing different hats is that the original goal was by 2030 because that was the original set of goals for the Clean Energy Initiative was 40% renewables and 30% energy efficiency. Or was it the other way around? That's correct. That's correct. And so basically it was all along it was going to be driven by us being much more energy efficient. And people conserved better for energy when, for example, back in 2008 because of very high oil prices, $150 a barrel then, that people on the big island, for example, were paying close to 50 cents a kilowatt hour. So, you know, people started conserving. And so the idea is they need to continue to conserve, but in the meantime, the state needs to help more in terms of how do we bring new efficient technologies to the marketplace and things like that. So it's a combination of things. It's conservation, which is a personal preference, but it's also how do you end up with these new systems that allow you to be more energy efficient? Right. The cheapest energy is the energy you don't use. Exactly. The Amory Leavens famously characterize these things, and a lot of people use it now, is negawatts. And negawatts are the cheapest. I don't want to surprise you, but you know, I didn't mention it, but this segment that we just had David Aquino on, that's called the negawatts moment. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. So you probably want me, go ahead. So we have actually two portfolio standards. One is the renewable portfolio standards, which almost everybody knows about, but rarely talked about is the efficiency portfolio standard, where we're targeting electricity use reduction targets by certain dates. But let's go back a little. Terry, how do you know all this stuff? Tell us a little bit about your background. You know, you could ask him, what is it to be the director of the Hawaii State Energy Office? Yeah. I don't leave that to you, Mina. All right. Which question do you want me to answer? Give us a short version of your background. So I spent probably, well, actually over a quarter of a century in two national laboratories. I was the general manager, ultimately at Argonne National Lab. I was the general manager for environmental programs. It actually included a lot of all of the energy systems management work that we did at Argonne for a variety of clients either. And we worked with Department of Energy, obviously, but also Department of Defense and USEPA on those things. And then I was at Lawrence Livermore as the associate lab director for energy. And again, it was primarily working with energy systems analysis, new technologies, and the thrust of those technologies. A lot of times it was all about energy efficiency. So we did that. And then I was on loan to the Energy Commission in California where I worked for Art Rosenfeld, who's generally seen as the father of energy efficiency today in terms of the national push towards this. And so that's when I started doing a lot of work in renewables and efficiency. And then because I was president of Pictor and was helping to write one of the first year marks for Senator Inouye for energy that was being paired with Senator Domenici from New Mexico. So both sides of the aisle. When that came through, Chauncey Ching asked me to come out and run that project. So I went to HNEI for Wide Natural Energy Institute for what I thought was going to be a year and ended up being over four years. And then I've been back and forth. And so I've known me in a very long time going back to the late 90s working on various projects when I've been out here. Either as a Pictor board member or president and then with HNEI. You must know Jay Griffin pretty well. I heard him. Okay, Bob. I assume you... I got a very good recommendation from me. I'm here at the table. Actually, I kind of remember that telephone interview. I was on vacation. So first of all, the State Energy Office is located within the Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism. And as we mentioned earlier, Terry is the Interim Director. And so Jay's earlier question, what does the State Energy Office do? Well, basically what we're moving on now is that since I've shown up and I go back to working over the years with Maurice Kai a lot and... Kay Maurice. Just a shout out, that's all. And then working with Mark over the years going back to his other positions in the state government. So we're friends and so when Mark was leaving, the short answer there, and I'll get into what we do, was Mark asked me to see if I could take over at least on an interim basis as he moved on to HNAI. So the way I understand it, you're one of the few people not applying for that position. So we did have a lot of applications. That's true. So I think Mark did a great job of bringing in a lot of new young people. And I'm really happy with the makeup of the branch chiefs and the people that are working there. I'm very happy with that. But what we're doing now, I've shifted gears a little from what went on over the recent past is that I was talking to me about this before the meeting. We've really withdrawn from filing into dockets. We're not going to be interveners except for strategic reasons. So for example, it was actually a very good idea to file into the next era docket because you really needed a lengthy perspective that was filed into that docket and the state energy office. But on the other hand, there's a lot of things that come up where, for example, a rape case. And my feeling is rape cases are going to come and go. And I think that, so then what do we do now for not doing that? And I think first of all, we really need to be the state energy policy office. So we need to support the governor. However, we need to be, you know, honest with the governor about what's working and what's not working towards the goals. And some of this is, again, what Meena and I have talked about is that when the Clean Energy Initiative started in 2008, we were going to build these huge wind farms on Molokahi and Lanai and run an undersea cable to Oahu. None of that happened. But in the meantime, we're meeting our renewable portfolio standard goals because wind turbine technology, the prices have come down. They become more efficient. They're better able to deal with frequency and voltage variations. And then, of course, we've had a huge drop in solar panel prices, including the installations come down. So we're easily meeting the goals now. So part of what we're doing now is how do we rethink the future? Not the 2045 goal, but how do we rethink between now and 2030 going back to the original Clean Energy Initiative goal? In other words, we're 10 years into the Clean Energy Initiative. We're almost 10 years. Why do you feel that we need to rethink it right now? What are the things that make it necessary for you to rethink it? Well, I think it's a variety of things. You can't continually be relying on solar panels. I think you need to start considering... My thing is, how do you start better understanding how the grid's going to work and support more valuable technology? And part of that has to come from all the new distributed technologies that are coming into place. The popular one is storage. But there's a variety of new technologies that go back. It could be cloud computing. It would be data accumulation. It could be methods for automated demand response. It could be certainly telecommunications. And a lot of these things should be able to allow the utility to manage variability on their distribution systems because you have all of this renewable energy behind the meter. And so you have these two-way flows. How do you do a better job of energy? Well, it's very complex stuff. You're talking about technologies that are complex to start with. And then you put a cocktail of them together and you have to measure it outright. And then you don't know exactly what the result would be when you start putting all the ingredients in the cocktail. Then you throw in all the economic factors. Because that's something, I mean, we have to be cognizant of costs. How do you sleep at night, Terry? Very well. What kind of staff, and I certainly agree that the energy office should be an energy policy office and it should address policy, but what kind of staff do you have that can appreciate all these technologies and the mixture of these technologies? I think that, again, I go back to think that Mark did a really good job hiring in some very good young people. Of course, I say that because you and I, and I'll not say this about me, but you and I are geysers. So these people are friends and company. And so these folks are young, they're enthusiastic, and they're knowledgeable about a lot of the technologies. There's a real good team there. And the idea is how do you take that forward so you get back to the idea that not only should we be the policy office where we can really weigh into these things and then be honest about where we might be going, but the other thing is I think we need to do a better job facilitating interaction. That's one reason I didn't want to be in the dockets. That once you get into the dockets, any conversations that they have with the PUC are ex parte. And my aside from spending time in California is that the previous president of the California Public Utility Commission had the FBI raid his home because of too many ex parte discussions. So the idea is if you're not in the docket, you can talk to anybody and you should be facilitating interaction between Dave, who was just here from Blue Planet, the folks in Hawaii, HIKO, the PUC and others that interest the parties. And how do you move that dial along where you start getting consensus on a number of things that you may not normally have? So, J. Ray, I think this is really important having this body of sort of experts or knowledge within deep end, especially in the energy office, is that's a resource for the administration, the governor's office. That's a resource for the legislature and it's a resource for other departments in moving forward. May I add the thought though that we don't have enough time to identify all the potential organizations that could take leadership positions in the landscape of the energy community, both in government and in private sector. I mean, just to list a few, the utility, they could take a leadership position. They should be leaders. PUC, they could take leadership positions, such as what you did in your inclinations paper, famous inclinations paper a couple years ago. The, certainly, legislature, like it or not, the legislature is in a leadership position, like it or not, we can talk about that. And it's governor himself, aside from the energy office, as a part of his administration. I could go on. The problem is there are so many potential companies and organizations and governmental agencies that could be, maybe each of them in their own way should be the leader. Who, where does, this goes back to my original question, right? Where does the energy office fit in this constellation of potential leaders? Well, you know, I think it goes back, there's a limit to what the PUC can do with policy, because they have to regulate policy. And, you know, it's the same issue in California that there's some things going on where I had to take leave when I came out here. We were working on some automated demand response work for the California Public Utility Commission. Well, I was happy to get the money for that, you know, as a retired annuitant for University of California. I was also felt that it should more appropriately be the California Energy Commission, because they should be the policy office, you know, their standard setting and so on, because the CPUC has to develop regulations. Do you think there should be an energy commission here in Hawaii or possibly something along the lines of Robert Moses' concept of energy authority? Well, having served hamburgers to Robert Moses as a kid in one of my early jobs, my guess is probably not a good idea. I think each state has to, you know, go along its own path. I think actually having a commission with commissioners like California has, which, you know, has maybe 15 times the population or 20 times the population of Hawaii probably overkill in terms of a state bureaucracy. I think that where it resides now, which there's an acknowledgement that energy must fit into economic development. So it's part of DBED. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think that, you know, the Public Utility Commission has to develop regulations and pass on these dockets. They do need a technical staff, which, you know, I think Mina helped beef up when she was there, you know, heading the commission. So I think all that comes into place. So there's a dynamic here. And just as there's a dynamic in any other state, you know, I mean... I think you don't want to invest in the bureaucracy, what you really want to invest in is in people and finding the right leadership in various organizations. People have to understand that they need to work collaboratively So I think that's what's needed right now. It's the right leadership in these different positions that understand the larger picture of how to get there. Well, this goes, I suppose, to a question that you raised before and that is, so what's going to happen now? The interim means not forever. I think it means not forever. What happens now? Well, we have an operation going on. My sense is, because that was one of the questions, that, you know, I'm hoping that somewhere in July we'll have a permanent replacement. And we've had some good candidates. And so I think that we'll get to the point. But again, I'm only, you know, I can't... I guess I'm divulging more than I should say. Oh, that's okay. It's just Jay and me right here. But I think that, you know, it's... I'm hoping that what we do, what I've done now over the time I've been there is to kind of recalibrate them to do, again, be the policy lead, be the facilitator, and also more broadly, and that's why I like David's presentation, again, help with education about how do you use energy? How do you understand this better? How can we work with communities that may be impacted by utility-scale development? So, I mean, there's a number of things that can be done. So what I did do is when I got there, you know, after getting on, kind of finding the desk and everything, is I've been working and we're in the final throes of laying out, this is what we're going to do. And it's all about having a plan. You'd like to call it a strategic plan, but it's as much a set of tactics as anything else that I basically had the branch chiefs and the lead financial person develop. I mean, my view was, I'm going to be gone. What do you want this place to look like when I'm gone? So you're suggesting that it would be different under the new administration of this person selected, this unidentified person who will be selected by August. And it would be different, I guess, than it has been before. It would be a different office. Can you tell us any idea about how it will be different? What would you like to send into the future as your legacy? Well, what I'm doing now is for the plan that we've talked about developing, the three key things about the plan I've just pointed out. It's policy, facilitation, and education. And you know, it's not just me saying, here's what I think you guys should do. It's, we went away for a retreat and the folks came up with, here's what we think is important. And you know, I mean, I had some commentary, but this is what we think is important. And then all the meetings since then, I've not been at it, because I said you've got to cover more before we close. No, I think we're waiting with beta breadth for announcement. And we're lucky to have Terry as a resource within our community. He always pops up when there's an issue. Yeah, and again, even though, let's face it, as I joke, but it's true when Mary Alice Evans asked me if I wanted to be permanent, I said, number one, I'm in my 70s, so no. And number two, I don't want to get divorced because my life is still full-time at Stanford. But that said, you know, I really believe I have good working relationships with people here. And to the extent that I continue to help the state, I'd like to be doing so. That's good of you. So is it closed now? Is the period for filing applications closed? Or is somebody watching this who might be interested? It's too late for them. Yeah, it's too late. Too bad for you. But there are a lot of other positions that might be open. Maybe some of those policy staff positions. Well, actually we have, I don't know what the closing date is, but we have two that are posted now. Because we didn't get into the transportation, but one of them is explicitly for transportation specialists. Yeah, very important issue. Well, you're in an interesting spot in the history of the Hawaii Energy Initiative. And thank you for coming down, Terry. Well, this has been fun. Great to have you here. Maybe you'll come down later, too, again. I'm always available. I didn't finish all my questions. Maybe we should go in for a special session. Kind of wild. Yeah, further legislature. Well, you close, Mina. Well, thank you, Terry. This closes a month of what's happening at the legislature, focusing on watchers, people, the advocates who participate at the legislature, the doers. We had two legislators talking story with us. And now a vision from the implementer, people who have to carry out the policy and also educate. And so that closes out the legislative watch of the Hawaii State of Clean Energy this month. Thank you, me and Rita. It's been great to work with you this whole month. It's been terrific. Thanks, Jay. Appreciate it. And thank you, Terry, for coming down. Great being here. Good luck to you. Whatever it is. Well, this year the only problem I had is this job really cut into my scheme. Because when you get over 70, there's a lot of places in the Rockies and Sierra where they give you supergees or discounts. 80 to be free. And a North Star. But there's some places where you hit 70 and you've gone through a senior discount and then you hit 70 and a supergees or discount. So like in Rappo Basin in Colorado, I was with my son a couple of years ago and it was $95 for him and $20 for me. Well, cheer up. It's $100 to get into Disneyland. Thank you very much, both. I love you. See you next time. Thanks.