 Hello and good afternoon everybody. Welcome to think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii the state of clean energy. My name is John Cole and I'm going to be your guest host today. Mitch Ewan is out on travel doing some important business I'm sure. But I'm here today for our Hawaii state of clean energy episode and today we're going to be talking about pressing the boundaries of renewable penetration on Oahu and getting real on our pathway to 100%. My guest here today is Mark Plick. He's with the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii. He's a specialist on energy policy. Welcome Mark and thank you for joining us today. Thanks a lot John. Thanks for having me. Great. I'll start off the discussion on why we chose Oahu. I mean we do have renewable energy goals for the whole state and I think we're advancing pretty well in that regard. But we decided to concentrate on Oahu because of certain aspects of it. What makes Oahu different from the other islands or special or more challenging? Yeah you know it's pretty exciting as you know Hawaii has already met its 2030 interim target for renewable portfolio standard. Hawaii Island particularly when its geothermal is reinstituted hopefully sometime early next year will be well beyond its interim target for 2030 as well. Maui's right on the cusp. Oahu is challenged and there are many reasons for that but it is the most populous island it has the greatest electricity demand. So I think you know those are two of the biggest challenges you know roughly 800 megawatt peak demand at various times. And that requires a huge amount of renewable energy to make up what we're currently getting from fuel oil power thermal generation and from some coal which will be phased out I think by 2023. So all of that is I think putting a lot of stress on being able to move upwardly fast on these renewable goals for Oahu. Exactly and unlike some of the other islands we don't have quite as much land more population and it's being used for things so we'll definitely be getting into that a little more. Right. So the utilities have a plan that's been okayed by our regulators the public utility utilities commission. What about those plans I mean what kind of what do they consist of and where are we going as far as types of renewables we're going to be getting on the system and things like that. If you can describe what that looks like. Sure yeah the planning process for the one electric utilities which cover Maui, Hawaii Island and Oahu. We're kind of retooled as you know as you well know by the public utilities commission a few years ago. It evolved from a typical integrated resource planning process to a power supply improvement plan a series of other associated plans so the ESIP which we like to read. That's our abbreviation for the power supply improvement plan has set forth that and would this be a good time to bring up some of the graphs. Yeah could we bring up the first slide. This is just two charts of the utilities plans that were presented to the PUC and the approved plan is a little bit different but it's close to this. Let's say that and far be it from me to correct a former public utilities commissioner even though I was a former energy administrator basically Hawaiian electrics ESIP was accepted not officially approved right. And the distinction was that the public utilities commission felt like it was ready to go. But I felt like it still wasn't quite as specific and as complete as necessary because probably some of the things we're going to talk about which are how do you get to these out years really effectively. But clearly in terms of gigawatt hours which I think these charts are in. These are megawatt capacities. Megawatt capacities. So in it shows the breakdown in terms of distributed generation and the amount of energy coming from waste power and wind. And I think the key distinction between these two particular plans post April plan which was one of the pathways that one electric pursued in its piece of development and the E3 plan which favored a significant amount more of distributed generation and solar and storage. And I think the storage you can see with the gray components. So there's a massive amount of storage and as you get towards 2040 that final blip from where it spikes is when it goes from 70 percent renewable energy to 100 percent. And you can see the vast amount of storage which is required under a high PV concentration. And I guess we're looking at utility scale with the darker gold or color and the lighter color yellow distributed generation rooftop solar. And you know the real challenge is and I think the final plan is actually somewhat mostly tilted towards the E3 plan but it definitely favored I think the solar and storage scenario. So part of the challenge and what led the Hawaiian Natural Energy Institute to want to look at this more deeply is you know with our land use requirements with with public input that's necessary site renewable generation. Do we really have the ability to place on all the potential area enough renewable generation and particularly given where the accepted power supply improvement plan is and it's heavy concentration of solar and storage. Can you find land that can actually accommodate this. Get it approved and get it installed so that you can meet these targets. This isn't any judgment at all on the PESA process or the accepted plans at all. It's just simply a matter of looking at different pathways to get you at higher levels of renewable. And you know I think it will also inform how far and fast you can move towards the power supply improvement plan goals. Right. I mean there's been a lot of talk of you know solar and storage will help us get to 100%. And it seems like from this plan and recent activity and the development of new projects that things are kind of going that way. There's one wind farm that's out there and approved and probably will be built but there's still some people protesting about that. There was a proposed wind farm that may or may not be approved. People talked about offshore wind and then things like geothermal on the other islands but from the recent RFP the utilities did which was all solar and storage. There's currently another RFP on the street that people are going to be bidding on soon for variable renewable generation which is anticipated most proposals will be solar with that. And that also is coming with a request for storage. So do you see anything else coming up other than storage and TV that might help us get there and diversify the portfolio a bit? Or to me it seems that's kind of the direction we're going to be heading at least in the near term for economic and other reasons on the island. Well clearly the utility plan so far and nothing has really altered this as you saw in the last graph really favors solar and storage. And you're absolutely correct. The Kahuku wind farm which was an approved project but still is going through I guess the final steps of its permitting process. You know we do have issues with our diverse and rare birds and with our bat population. So the indigenous flora and fauna and particularly in this case I guess the fauna is something that has raised a lot of concerns. So I think that's been the primary issue in the Kahuku wind farm. The other one you mentioned is in the area called Palihua but it's above Kahi Power Plant. And definitely there were a few public meetings and I think it demonstrated that there still are a lot of public input that will be received for many types of renewable energy. So I don't think it's a given that you can easily pivot one way or the other but it does put I think enormous amount of reliance on the solar and storage elements of the plan. And in later years as you may have recalled there was some biomass or waste elements titled waste in there. And that's essentially waste to energy at the H Power Plant and biomass to make up huge amounts of differences. Or switching fuels to a biofuel of renewable biofuels. That's right and the availability of that and it certainly doesn't appear at this stage that would be indigenous or locally produced. So it means we'd be importing perhaps a green fuel and maybe not even so green a fuel and replacing that with other imported obviously higher carbon fossil fuels. So again I think it puts a great deal more reliance. You know there were other possibilities that have been discussed in the past. None on their own can solve the problem but it does appear that it's going to require a portfolio approach to move forward. And it is a little disconcerting to basically throw all of your eggs in this basket even though frankly there have been other studies and advocates that have made that sound fairly straightforward and pretty simple. Perhaps a little too simple. So it does seem at least in the near future many of the utility scale projects are going to be solar. Whether solar alone in storage with a particular project or utility controlled but it does seem we're going down that path. A lot of folks who mentioned that say that's great it's getting cheaper and it's going to be cheaper. It's already cheaper than some oil burning plant on a cost per kilowatt hour basis. But it certainly comes with a lot of challenges I see especially building up to the levels we're talking about that a lot of people aren't pointing out or aware of as far as I can tell. That's kind of the discussion I wanted to have today. And to be sure I think one of the things that has been somewhat surprising in a very pleasant way has been the great reduction in solar and storage are versus agreements that have been forged in the last few years. You know who expected solar and storage to be in the 10 cent per kilowatt range. I certainly didn't think it was going to move this low this rapidly. And so I think there is a strong indication that technology will improve and perhaps bring those prices down even more. We certainly are benefactors of the rapid pace of innovation that's being conducted on the international level. And certainly in the past United States leading the way for many years China overtaking America's lead in terms of investment in renewable energy and renewable energy innovation. You may recall a few years ago seems like centuries ago but there was a president before the previous before the current president and his secretary of energy Ernie Moniz was an outstanding secretary of energy and he called for and it was supported by the president something called mission innovation and that was to double the amount of innovation and renewable energy investments. And to do that in a 10 year period many of the countries of the world are still committed to mission innovation. United States hasn't fully backed away from it even though it's backed away from the Paris Accord. So I think that we're benefactors of those investments which are really the driving forces behind these cost curve reductions in wind and solar energy. So I think that that gives us hope that at least that strategy will continue to bear good costs. It's I think the bigger issue in HNEI has been a real leader in analyzing the impacts of this. How can you manage really high rates of renewable of intermittent energy particularly solar and even with storage armed up with storage. How far can you go with that. And you're a much greater expert at that than I am. And one of the things I wanted to talk about is I don't think people understand the sheer scale of the amount of PV that's going to need to be deployed to meet these goals. If this is a sole path or pretty exclusive path. I know the RFP that was recently awarded contracts on for this island was about 130 megawatts. And there's an RFP on the street where people are preparing bids for now. It's almost another 700 megawatts. And that's just enormous in scale. I mean with our thermal generators we have a peak of around a thousand megawatts we'll say. There's a couple hundred extra to cover for generator losses and things like that. But with solar you need to build much higher than that to cover the capacity factor. It's only producing several hours a day so you need to build a lot more. And if you think about the rough estimate of PV about two and a half acres per megawatt. So that's an awful lot of acres that we're going to be seeing under development for solar. And that comes with its own challenge. Sure. Sure. I mean just using that if you want to get additional 400 megawatts you're looking at a thousand plus acres. It's just to give you a sense. Oahu has about 85,000 acres overall. And what you have to do is look at the acreage that's truly available. That through the land use can be permitted. Be developed in this area. And whether or not it can actually go through a process to be approved for that. I'm going to stop you here. We need to go to a quick break but we'll be right back and continue this discussion. Thank you. Aloha. I'm Winston Welch, host of Out and About. It's a show that we have every other Monday on ThinkVec Live Here. We explore a variety of topics that are really interesting. We have organizations, events, and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country, and world. We've got some amazing guests on here like all the shows at ThinkVec. So if you want to catch up on stuff, tune into my show every other Monday and other shows here on ThinkVec Live. It's a great place to learn about stuff, to be informed. And if you have some ideas, come on my show. Let's talk about it. See you later. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Stan Osterman. Stan the energy man every Friday here on ThinkVec Hawaii. If you're really interested in finding out what's going on in energy, especially here in Hawaii, but also all the way around the world, and especially if it has to do with hydrogen, look into Stan the energy man every Friday, 12 o'clock, ThinkVec Hawaii. Be there. Aloha. All right. Welcome back, everybody. I'm John Cole, your guest host. And Mark Glick from H&EI is here today. And we've been talking about getting to 100% renewable penetration on Oahu and challenges and what comes along with that. And we were just talking about the sheer volume of PV and what that means, that we'll need to supply our energy demands and what it also means in terms of land use and how much land that will actually take. So Mark was talking about some of that. And we do have some graphics and maps. I don't know if you want to bring that up yet or... Sure. No, I mean, it's a good time to go into it because we're talking about something that is probably going to require somewhere from a 20th to a 10th of all of Oahu's landmass to be able to handle if you were to do it all with the amount of solar and storage that is called for in these plants. I just point out that this graphic is showing on the left is the E3 utility plan that we're talking about. And the other is the post-April plan. It doesn't really matter. The post-April has a little less solar and the E3 plan has more. So the dark orange areas are areas that would need to have solar on them in order to meet the requirement. Yeah, if you follow that plan, which essentially is one electric plan for now, you're going to have to fill all of those areas. Those are basically... And let me... You might if I sort of take a step back. And these maps are... We were very gracious that Jason Lee and his team of outstanding researchers at the Laboratory of Advanced Visualization Applications, Lava. Really great name for that. At the University of Hawaii at Manoa, just several doors down from our building. Jason is one of the top designers in the world of these advanced visualization environments. And when I was energy administrator, I had really thought that to help our energy planning and help utilities and help the public and help decision makers make better decisions, you had to translate all these data sets, all these heavy data, technical data sets into images. And so we applied for a grant with the Department of Energy on something called the Hawaii Advanced Visualization Energy Nexus. Haven. I don't know who came up with that acronym. But anyway, they did and we won that grant and we came up with one of the most advanced projects in the United States to be able to place this data, set it up in a geographical way. And so these maps that you're looking at are products of that project. And so they did a picture. They loaded all the data essentially from the power supply improvement plan and how far you had to go. And under the, as John had mentioned, under the E3 plan which is on the left, you really have to fill out that much land to meet the solar priorities. Because the plan on the right, this post-April plan has more offshore wind and has more other stuff, other renewable energy sources. It requires less solar, but it's not the operable plan today. But if you look at that map and you see that area on the left, on the far left, that huge circle in the middle, that's covering almost all of Waini. Yeah. If I could point out a lot of the white blank space you see there is, you know, the ranges. So Waini. Yeah, you can go all range with a lot of steep land. So that's pretty much unavailable. Yeah. The local IA completely covered, you know, there's, and we'll take a look at some other maps. We'll show some layers. The layers, you know, basically who are the owners of this property, you know, who are the people that you would actually have to give you permission to place these renewable energy elements there. And again, the purpose of this is to get us a clear sense of staging and phasing of these projects and to give us, I think, a clear sense of what we need to do to get ready to get these things underway and to maybe give us some caution in the event that some of these don't appear to be as realistic as we'd hoped. We need to come up with other options. So again, this is meant to provide, I think, some guidance, but perhaps even a reality check down the road. And to help people understand the magnitude of our needs and, you know, this transition. That's right. And let's just show one of the other slides. I think it's slide five. Okay. And just one time I wanted to add a layer. The yellow on this map is, you know, land that's zoned for either residential or commercial. So a lot of that overlaps with what you're seeing as areas where solar could be built. So, I mean, that's just one of the layers. There's agricultural layers, different land ownership, like Mark had said. So there's a lot of different challenges that will come as, you know, citing that amount of photovoltaic utility skill as well as, you know, other challenges with doing that, including getting the power to where it's needed. I mean, a lot of these are kind of out in the country and a lot of the power is needed in town. So it may require things like transmission upgrades. Well, you know, what we decided to do, and you know, I have to credit Dr. Rick Roscholo, who's the director of HNEI, for his willingness to put resources towards this effort. And what he's asked me to do is come up with a project plan which involves identifying chief stakeholders that should be involved, obviously utilities. And, you know, the grid operator clearly has to be involved. And they're very interested in this because they want to get a better handle on how to effectively carry out their plans and so on. Obviously, there are other players that will understand the issues of grid interconnection, but also land use and in the fair and equitable use of the land for this purpose. We want to bring those players together to help us analyze. We want to bring in some actors. Again, we haven't gone through this process yet, so I won't bring up names, but there are companies that have done really great work with GIS. You have been heavily involved with some of them in terms of their ability to create layers, to look at, you know, the hosting capacity for the distributed generation, and to reflect all of those elements. And to try to do that as rapidly as we can, I mean, maybe do that over the next 12 months. And so we're really committed to do that. I pretty much have, I think, through the next several months, developed that plan and get that process underway. That's great. Thank you. We've only got a couple minutes left, so much time has really flown. I mean, anyway, I don't know if you're enjoying this as much as I am. That's been great. But I did want to ask, I mean, in addition to the transmission and actual land availability, there's also maybe community concerns. We've seen some of that starting to pop up with wind farms and things like that. Solar is different, but it's going to be a lot of land that it needs, so you anticipate some of those issues be forefront as well? Well, it wouldn't be project development if you didn't have some of that. You know, we take all of that seriously. And I've listened to consumer advocate and others on the conversation, other radio and television shows, all very seriously taking into consideration community input. And we need to do that. The idea is to serve all of us and to make the state much greater. So we need to look at all these things very carefully and make sure that they are appropriate and that they meet the intent of our environmental review laws and all of that. Okay. Well, I guess we're about out of time, so I want to thank you very much, Mr. Gulick, for joining me here on Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy today. Well, thanks so much. It's been an honor sharing this opportunity with you and all the great work you've done as well and continue to do at HNEI as well. Thank you. Thank you everybody for joining us.