 It's Wednesday, so aloha, y'all. I just came back from Texas, so I've still got the y'alls in there. Welcome to Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Our sponsor is the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. We had a fantastic legislative brief Friday last week, and that'll be coming online at some point in the near future, I hope. And HEPF, the forum, also gets funding from my organization, the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. So we provide funding to help this along. So today, I'm very pleased to have Riley Saito, who is the deputy director of the Department of Research and Development for the county of Hawaii. And Riley is going to talk to us about some of the innovative things that we're doing to help hydrogen, and in particular, hydrogen buses. So the title of our show today is Converting to a Zero-Emission Bus Fleet Quickly, as opposed to waiting for years and years as the funding cycle goes up and down, Riley and his team have come up with some very innovative ways to fund this. And I'm not going to steal his thunder and talk about it. I'm going to let him do the talking. So it's really a made in Hawaii deal. And I think Hawaii is going to be able to share this with the mainland people. So Riley, let's talk a story about your innovative financing system. Well, it started a year ago with looking at how, on the building and facility site of the years, there have been progress by government agencies going into contract for performance services related to energy. And in talking with investors, the investment community, there was nothing like that for vehicles or related to mobility and transportation. So we actually took HRS 3641, which was for building facilities with energy savings contracts, and tweaked that to include the characteristics of mobility of vehicles, meaning equipment that actually utilizes, provides transportation on our highways, our roadways. And it made it through the House, the Senate, the conference committee. The governor signed it into law on June 26. Now, what this allows is the actual third party financiers to provide vehicles to the government agencies, along with fueling and charging infrastructure. So that is an injury for those familiar with power purchase agreement. This is more a fashion to be compensation to the investor by vehicle miles traveled. And in the case of mass transit, we're looking at passenger miles traveled or provided by the vehicles. And that's an interesting approach in that the investor themselves would be motivated to increase the passenger ridership. And that would provide the asset owner and motive to have different types of vehicles, different types of routes, having perhaps the first and last mile be more of a dynamic online reservation type situation or a phone call. And I need from point H, point B. And you have a vehicle that's actually within a certain area. And that vehicle is responsible for getting these various 24-hour notice reservations to the bus and from the bus. And so the asset is owned by a third party whose motive is to actually increase the passenger miles. Have 50 people on the bus, not five people on the bus. And by getting five or 50 people on the bus or 40 people on the bus, you're taking people and cars off the road. And so that's helping us decarbonize our energy system because all of a sudden, you don't have single people or just two people in a car driving from A to B. You have a really good bus service that that's people's first option is I want to take the bus because it's convenient and clean, silent because it's an electric drive bus, all those good things. Exactly. And what's really critical for is the characteristics of our workforce and the long trips that are taken on the big island due to the size of the island. And we're about to issue a final roadmap, the final report on a roadmap we've been working on. And that study shows that 30% of the populated workforce travel more than 50 miles from work. Did you say 38%? Correct. Wow. That's a lot. Because we have our work centers, you know, Hilo, Kono, the Holocaust Resorts, and the affordable housing is over 50 miles away. And that's a big economic hit on people. I mean, they have to have the car. They have to maintain it. They have to pay for gasoline or fuel. And the fuel prices are variable. And who knows what they're going to do in the near future or even the medium time future. So this is like a really good service that we can provide our population, our working population. Right. And, you know, getting the fleet clean was certainly the greenhouse gas inventory that we just issued. We're issuing this week. It's on our website. We just put it on. That transportation comes for 53% to 54% of the greenhouse gases emitted on this island. And it's due to the size and the long commute. And you think that workforce can you, but you also take into account all mobility of products and services that the main port is in Hilo, and that all has to be transported. There's one landfill, and all the trash has to be transported. Right. So this could apply to more than just public transportation, though. This can also apply to all the county fleet vehicles, like the garbage trucks and like you said, the hauling trucks that haul refuse from transfer stations over to the landfill. Your fleet of light duty vehicles that are used for just day-to-day business of conducting the county's business. And also, I understand there's kind of like a rideshare program when those vehicles are not being used. So why don't you explain a little bit about that? The approach we're taking is to utilize the clean vehicles that are owned by a third party, asset owner. And so I'll just say asset owner from here on. The asset owner has the core tenant of the county to utilize the mobility device or equipment. It might be a power, it might be a truck, it might be a e-bike, a power assisted bike, it might be a golf cart, whatever it is. And that is utilized by the county Monday through Friday between 7.30 and 5. Every day on Monday through Friday. Now, the count weekends and holidays, and that's on election year, it's 117 days in which those vehicles will not be used. And if you look at each Monday through Friday, that from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m., 7.30 a.m., those vehicles will not be used. And so as a third party asset owner, you have your Monday through Friday tenant, tenant anchor tenant, so to speak, of the county that has requirements and same approaches. It's online reservations apps. It's not assigned to one department or one area. It's assigned, basically the reservation system drives where the asset needs to be for the county to have mobility to do its work. And the rest of the time, every day between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m., it can be utilized by other government agencies, public, private, you could have some arrangements, say for Uber and Lyft drivers to drive clean vehicles that are up to date and versus driving older vehicles that are gas guzzlers, so to speak. You could have senior citizens, social services, food deliveries, all these other types of services that are now provided, social services that are provided by different departments, different agencies, aging, housing, Department of Health, and have them have the vehicles available. So like a nonprofit for supporting the Cappunas, like on the weekends when the county workers aren't working, some nonprofit or an organization that supports the elder community could use the transit vans to truck people around to various events or to provide additional services when the county is not there available to fill their need. Right, exactly. And it could be a situation where, like for students that have after-school programs, STEM programs, sports, the school bus systems, they are catered to and directed to the hours of school, but a lot of the students who are advancing in other things need mobility to and from home or to get back to home at 4.35 o'clock, 6 o'clock. And so those vehicles could be utilized to again, like vanpool, carpool, you know, transport multiple passengers from the school or that activity to their home. So talk to us a little bit about how the Energy Policy Forum helped you develop this program. I'm thinking, for example, the Peer Exchange project that the Policy Forum funded. Could you describe that and what it was and what the results were? You know, it's interesting because we are following this roadmap that as HRS 3642 is being developed, going through the legislative session, it looked pretty positive. And so about in April or so, State Energy Office and Lulupono Initiative, we got along with myself and the other members of the team, we got together and applied for Rocky Mountain Institute, a mobility innovation laboratory workshop in August. And we actually were awarded that. And we had mapped it out because many times when new policy comes on board, it is you go for the policy, but then you don't concurrently go for implementation. And the vehicle mobility rubber meets the road is when you implement, not when you just plan things. So it was to concurrently plan the implementation. So the governor signed the bill on June 26th. The Rocky Mountain Institute was innovation lab workshop had folks from DAG, from Department of Transportation procurement, from we had a couple of investors, we had Lulupono Initiative myself, the climate change commission coordinator, and really discuss what were the roadblocks, what are the hurdles, what is the best path forward to use existing procurement along with the new HRS. And the main takeaways was that we need to pretty much get more people involved, the right people involved, get an understanding, elevate and collaborate across silos of government procurement, the fleet managers, the energy people. We all, you know, energy people are jumping up and down about clean energy and the fleet managers are still past day-to-day to maintain the fleet keep the vehicles running. While the procurement office is going, well, what's the best energy vehicle to get? I'm gonna call it a little time out right now because we have to go to break. So we have a one minute break and we'll continue on with this because I think it's really important to talk about the templates you've developed and how that's carrying on. So we'll be back in one minute. Aloha. Aloha, my name is Duretian. You are watching Think Tech Hawaii. I will be hosting a show here every other Wednesday at one PM and we will be talking to a lot of experts and guests around sustainability, social justice, the future here in Hawaii, progressive politics and a whole lot more. So please tune in and thank you for watching Think Tech Hawaii. Hey, hello, everyone and welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 AM Hawaii time trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know, issues that can protect your family, protect yourself, protect our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Okay, we're back from our break live here in Hawaii, the state of clean energy and I have Riley Sado who's telling us it's very unique, program is developed, very proactive and this is how we're gonna get going quickly to convert our fleets over to clean energy and lower to zero emissions. So Riley, you're talking about coordinating with all the various silos, the various bureaucracies and how we can smooth it and you're being proactive and getting this going in parallel with the legislation so you're ready to hit the road as soon as the governor signs off on the bill. So I'd like you to tell us a little about how you develop these templates and I understand that one organization in Hawaii has already let out the first RFP, so over to you. Right, so with the peer exchange, we got the various groups together, mainly the fleet managers who operate the vehicles for the government agencies, the procurement agents or management from each of the counties along with the state and with the energy people and that have been looking at EVs and fuel cell vehicles and other zero emission type mobility devices and so we got together for the peer exchange and really came out with, you know, to actually listen, learn and share among the various groups and interestingly the main takeaway was that we all have the same concern and we all have the same problems questions that need to be answered and so with that, you know, the main next step was to identify the target fleet. What are we going after? If you want, you know, heavy duty pickup trucks, they don't exist in clean vehicles yet, you know, mainstream but you know, what are we gonna do and how are we gonna map out the rollout and so, but you have to have the target fleet analyzed and the actual savings, cost savings analyzed and then quantified for budget and final. So we are maintaining that group, that network of the participants and we are gonna continue to collaborate, share. If for instance, I found this work with the city of New York on maintenance of clean vehicles. They did a study of over 2,000 vehicles, hybrids, electric vehicles, combustion engine vehicles and they came out with a study on the cost of that and I said that out to the group, we're fortunate enough to actually get the Excel spreadsheet with all the costs of the breakdown by vehicle, by type of maintenance that was required and that has been very uplifting investing the knowledge based on maintenance which is what is the maintenance of the clean vehicles. So the indicators are that the EVs, pure EVs were $200 to $400 a year to maintain and the internal combustion engines were $1,600 to $1,700. Wow, that's like four times more than four times. Right. Yeah, amazing. Now, if you take that to, you know, I don't know, 1,000 vehicles in about $100,000 a year. Right. And so, now that's just in the maintenance cost. So, and there's fuel costs and other things that we need to analyze, we need to quantify properly to accurately measure the cost savings. And in parallel to that we'll measure the greenhouse gas reduction and we monitor that. Okay. So I'll talk a little bit about the templates now because I think this was very unique and thoughtful. Yeah, so the fire transportation procurement officer, Robin, Tishita O'odhamaui, he attended the Rocky Mountain Institute conference workshop and he attended the peer exchange. And so, he's the first poll in the water, so to speak, under joint procurement. He's made all the counties and other state departments to be included in this RFP. And the RFP is very broad. I think the debt cut off for the middle of January 14th. So, whatever names got submitted, got submitted. So, but the RFP itself is very broad. It gives the general parameters of what the vehicles should be capable of doing. The type of charging that we're interested in and really allowing the market to then respond to that in what's available and how to handle vehicles, vehicle fleets, what types of vehicles are available, what type of charging infrastructure can be offered in a service contract. And so, we put it to market, which is one of the, you know, to see what the market says. Right. So, like you said, the bids are just due now or just completed. So, we'll get, we'll see what kind of response they came back with. Were there any kind of questions? Were there a lot of questions or was it pretty straightforward and kind of painless for the bidders? Or did bidders have a lot of questions that they were asking about the RFP? Well, it was different because it was, you know, first time for this type of pretty open, broad, you know, what can you provide? And so, there is a few folks wanted to know if they could sell the government agency internal combustion engine. That's not what the RFP has for it. Yeah. And so, yeah, you're, you want 50 of these gas guzzlers? No, no, thank you. But, I have not heard the final list of questions that went through that. I haven't been directly involved in it to stay out of the, keep the procurement process, you know, within the procurement offices. So, the theory is that the template, you know, it may be modified based on some of the feedback we get, but that'll become a template for all the government departments in Hawaii to be able to use that as a model for how they go out and do their procurement. And also, I understand. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, it's exactly that, where we have, as County of Hawaii, has the option to utilize that procurement. Right. They don't have to. Right. Right, right. The same token also, the contract is also a template of, okay, so you put out the RFP, but how do you write a contract that meets, you know, financial oversight requirements, et cetera, et cetera. So that's like the second part of that whole component. Right. And then we're gonna advance our knowledge based on what's needed. We're gonna listen to the market, you know, the automobile dealers, the manufacturers, the financiers, the when you go into fueling and charging infrastructure, it's a whole different technical group that needs to be involved. And when you get into, if it's electric vehicles, then you're getting into network charging and that type of advancement and telematics and performance. And so I'm naming things that are, you know, bringing up things that are very diverse in that is, that different companies have, they're experts in that. But to resolve and advance to clean transportation, these, all these aspects need to be, it needs to be considered. So we wanna see what's out there. All right. So, Riley, what's next? Where are we on this roadmap that you've developed and what do you see the next, some of the next major steps, not getting it necessarily into the nitty gritty of it, but like top level view, what are we gonna be doing? We're gonna continue to see what the market has out there, what options are, you know, and more than likely what the county would be doing is issuing RFI. Specifically, instead of an RFI, it's specifically an RFI for transformation of clean vehicles to zero emissions. An RFI for mass transit to transform to clean transportation and an RFI to produce fuel for transportation on this island. Right. So what's been the reaction from the administration? You can speak specifically about the County of Hawaii. Obviously, you don't know about the other administrations, but has this been well received and what's the feedback you're getting from your political masters and the, you know, the executive as well? I think it's been very positive. One thing, you know, in working on this, it is different, it is out of the box. And I haven't had less than 100% support from within the county, and which makes my job very enjoyable. Right, exactly. So, you know, we have a big challenge with public transportation, as you know. I mean, I think the number, they don't have seven or eight buses that are actually operational on the road. So what kind of priority are you gonna be giving to transforming the bus fleet? Well, it's one of the three I named. So we wanna do these things in parallel and we are following the master plan for the mass transit multimodal master plan. And that is the guiding book, so to speak, to recovery for the mass transit administration here. But if, but there's no opposition to actually breaking out of that. If it advances the ridership experience, the availability, the reliability of mass transit services. And so we're doing it in parallel. Okay. And as it advances, if we can gain traction on the team vehicles, then, you know, if it works, then we'll keep going. Okay, so we're gonna last 30 seconds. Is there any final message that you would like to put out there, Riley? Yeah, real quick. Part of what's driving behind all of this is social equity. Is that mobility has to be clean mobility, has to be provided to the 48% Alice community on this island. If not, we have zero, zero, or below zero chance of transforming anything to 100%. Clean, otherwise, any other way. So let's do it here. Let's do it quickly. And thank you so much for your leadership. And that's a wrap. So Aloha, everyone. We'll be back next Wednesday with another guest. And I hope you enjoyed the show. And if you did, pass it on to your friends. People have to know about this kind of stuff. So once again, from Hawaii, the state of clean energy, Aloha.