 Howard Wigg, Code Green, Think Tech, Hawaii, welcome one and all. As you are very well aware, Hawaii was the first state to declare the goal of 100% clean energy by the year 2045, and one of the ways we're going to accomplish that is keeping our AC load, air conditioning load under control, and if the whole planet is going to survive and not drown in CO2, the whole planet needs to keep its AC load under control, because if you project worldwide, given global warming, the biggest, biggest increase in demand for electricity will be for AC. Enter our guest today, Stephen Sasaki from NIDON Clean Energy. NIDON is a local company, and they've been growing like mad, and what they can do is drastically reduce the amount of electricity needed in an AC system to produce the same amount of whole air. So welcome, Stephen. Thank you so much for being our guest today. And as we were talking before the show, I just recently came back from a conference, and one of the presenters has been spending some years in India, especially in Northern India, where they are having extreme, extreme heat waves to the point where people are literally dying from the heat. And we know there is going to be this huge increase in demand for air conditioning, and actually the same is going to be true for all over the world. So one thing we can do to ameliorate the production of CO2, carbon dioxide, which is the greenhouse gas, is render our air conditioning systems much more efficient, and that is where you, Stephen, take over. Please introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about NIDON Green Energy, and then let's get launched into your super-efficient product. All right. Well, thank you for the introduction, and thank you to ThinkTech Hawaii for this opportunity to share technology, because we know it's a game-changing technology, and it'll help businesses, residential help the people for and really around the world save a lot of electricity in the coming years. First of all, I'm the Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Business Development for NIDON Clean Energy. Nick Dizon is our president. He's been on the show, and he's done a great job promoting our technology in the Philippines and United Arab Emirates, as well as Hawaii and the West Coast. So we're moving on, and I'm on board to help him get Hawaii greener. And so what in the world kind of technology are you talking about here, Stephen? Our technology is installing a solar panel onto an air conditioning system or refrigeration system, and the panel has parabolic arrays that track the sun and absorb the heat and give the heat, provide the heat to the freon in the system, which superheats the freon and saves electricity by increasing the temperature and pressure of the freon in the system, thus making the compressor more efficient. What kind of temperature are we talking about, Stephen? Can you show the first slide? We'll take a little diagram, a schematic of the system. And as you can see there, that panel is your energy absorption thermal panel that again heats the freon, and it works in conjunction with the compressor. And as it increases in pressure, it reduces the energy needed to turn the compressor, which is your main consumer of electricity in the air conditioning slash refrigeration cycle. It superheats it, and as it comes out of the panel, it becomes super saturated and cools down, and it saves that electricity for your customer and for your electricity bill. And what percentage are you using compared to just a conventional HVAC system? We have results average 40%, and as we were talking earlier, some of the systems we've seen as much as 70%, not solely attributed to the SunTrack panel, but their conditioning system that people have on the roof many times aren't maintained and fall into disrepair. And so we change it out with the new variable speed, multi-stage newer technology in conjunction with SunTrack. We've seen 70% incredible. And with the tax credits that we'll talk about later, there's a slide, we are actually able to save customers, I mean, a return on investment in cases two years. We're normally in an air conditioning system, you just get a depreciation, and your return on investment is 15, 20 years. So with the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits as well as the energy savings, we can give you a return on investment anywhere from two to five years. And again, on that slide, the investment tax credits, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, it allows companies or even residents to save anywhere up to 70% in cases 80% off the cost of your system. Specifically, you get 40% off the federal tax taxes, which is actually broken down between the 30% of the renewable energy. And the administration also put 10% if your equipment is made in the USA. So our equipment is made in Tempe, Arizona. And that counts for the next 10%. There's also tax credits for architects and engineers. We also talked about Hawaii energy rebate, where we keep the data for you, we put an electronic gauge onto your system, we measure before and we measure after, and Hawaii energy tax credits will give you cash for a more efficient air conditioning system. And lastly, the law allows you to accelerate your depreciation on the system, which again, it turns out to be 70% in cases, even more reduction on your air conditioning system. And just a little background about Hawaii energy, when you look at your electricity bill, look at the back of it, you see this long list of additional expenses. And in this case, it's the public benefits fee, I believe. And that comes from your bill to the PUC, the Public Utilities Commission. And their Kuliana is to monitor and, if possible, reduce the cost of different utilities, certainly in the electric utility. And they pass that cash on to, well, complicated, but to Hawaii energy. And Hawaii energy's Kuliana is to look at all possible energy efficiency measures and see which gives the best payback and then provide money to that to reduce the customer's cost of adopting this new energy efficient to technology. So new folks are right up there on the customized efficiency measure list. And I'm gathering from your description that that's working very well, Stephen. Yes. Yes, it is. Thank you for pointing that out, Howard. That's very important. And it's really educating our customers that you have components of your electricity bill that comprise of that energy tax that many people don't know, your peak load and your consumption load. So there's variables in there that our technology help you shave all of those components of your electricity bill. And it is very complicated. It's not a simple calculation to determine what your electricity bill is. So I'm not the expert, but I can help you understand what your components are. But that's an excellent point that you get charged the tax. You don't get the credits. And you know, it just doesn't it doesn't get dispersed. Yeah, let me elaborate on that a bit. Stephen, we have the Hawaiian, Hawaiian Electric and the Kauai, K-I-U-C on Kauai are both looking at the fact that we have so much photovoltaic energy in this state right now, we've far exceeding per capita any other state. We in the middle of the day, we, the photovoltaics are producing too much electricity for the utility to handle. So we're moving more and more over towards storage, putting that excess electricity into big battery size or refrigerator size batteries. And I'm using that for to shave the peak. The demand for electricity starts going up about five in the afternoon when everybody's coming home from work and school. And it goes up to a peak when everybody's eating dinner watching TV. All the guests have come back from the beach and shopping and what another and the hotels are going and the restaurants are going full blast. But what this technology does is what's called shaves that peak. You're reducing the amount of energy consumed in the first place. So you are helping to shave down that peak evening demand. And incidentally Hawaiian Electric is in the process of adopting TOU, time of use pricing, where energy will be very cheap in the middle of the day and very expensive in the evening peak. So regardless of where you are, you're going to, your technology is going to be reducing the all over cost, including the cost of that evening peak electricity. So great point, great segues to my next slides, Howard, and thank you for bringing it up. So now this is getting into the, really the nuts and the bolts, but I think it's important to describe that one of our Sunshark panels equates to seven and a half tons of refrigeration or 90,000 BTU of energy saved. You know, if you did that, if you did that calculus, which, you know, I, you know, I just take it for granted, but it comes out in rough order of magnitude. One of our panels saves about 30, the equivalent of 36 PV panels of power generation. So it's, it's kind of, it's different. One saves one generates, but can you imagine if you got one Sunshark panel, it replaces 36 PV panels. So if you're running out of space and you're not close to your net zero goals, Sunshark will help you if you have an AC that's running 24 seven or even 12 hours a day. So that's something to consider. And I, and obviously we're trying to meet the greenhouse gas emissions or reduce those emissions. So it's a, it's a great way of doing that for our customers. And where have you installed so far in Hawaii, Stephen? Oh, we've had customers at a shipping company in San Island. We've done eight CND. We are also at animal clinic in Kaimakee and as well as Heinrich trucking. As we spoke earlier, Nick is pushing very hard. We've got some installs in the Philippines, which is going to grow very quickly because Philippine law is a lot different from American law. They're mandated to reduce electricity, not, you know, get tax credit. So that's very promising for our technology as well as, as I spoke earlier, United Arab Emirates is we're breaking the market there as well. As I noted earlier, the demand for electricity as the earth gets hotter, the demand for AC is just going to increase, increase, increase. Yes, absolutely. On the next slide, Howard, we talked about the, you know, if you're, if you're running your system, like your car, if you're running at 40% less, you're going to see a life expectancy that grows. That picture on the bottom left shows the greens sealant that we put on our condensers because our condensers are subjected to water and salt, and that's not a good combination for aluminum and copper. But because the condensing fan is running slower, there's less air, less water, less salt, less corrosion or oxidation happening to the condenser. And it ultimately lasts longer because you're not heating and cooling and heating and cooling and having all that thermal expansion going up and down, and you're really protecting the life of your system. And so if you look at the system on the top, that was recently, we took that picture when we recently installed that system in November of 2022. That's the baseline of the greenness or the protect other protecting that we put on. And then, then the bottom right shows a system that didn't have soundtrack and you can see that the sealant just gets, you know, it just gets a, you know, abuse and it doesn't last as long. So we've been having great success with longevity and trouble or no trouble calls with soundtrack installed. So because again, we're running 40% less, the system runs smoother and we expect it to last a lot longer. Now a good analogy might be with a car, if you're in traffic and you're going stop, start, stop, start, stop, stop, stop, stop, that is very hard on the engine and indeed on the whole drivetrain. Whereas if you're, fortunately for you on Oahu, you have a big stretch of open road and you're just cruising along at the requisite 55 miles an hour. Number one, you're getting much better gas mileage. Number two, it's much easier on all the moving parts and on the drivetrain and the life of your car is extended. So same, isn't this the same principle? You know, Howard, yes, it is definitely. If you can go to the next slide, Howard, we didn't rehearse this, but you're a, it seems as though you're a mind reader. But in our processes, what we do is we actually put an e-gauge as I spoke earlier. We put an e-gauge on the system because number one, it'll benefit your Hawaii tax credit. Number two, we want to show the customer what your savings will look like. And number three, it allows me to show somebody and you see that red box and it might be an eye chart on the screen, but that red box shows 79 amps on an old system. So we're looking at a, we're looking at a time histogram of how much amperage was used by a system which is on 24 seven. So you can see on the left side on the old system, an R22 system, you can see that we hit 79 amp peak. And again, that one peak will dictate your peak load calculations for your kilowatt hour, cents per kilowatt hour for the next 11 months on the HECO bill. Now you can see on the right side, when we installed the new system, the average is somewhere down in the 28 amp range. And you can see the swings of the day, how the compressor ramps up, ramps down, ramps up, ramps down. And you can see the magnitude decrease with the SunTrack panel. So there's many different components here. But again, the $6,300, I mean, if I said 6,700, I apologize, but it's $6,300 that this company qualified for in Hawaii Energy tax credits, not to mention the inflation reduction app credits, et cetera. So we come in, we install the gauges, we make sure that you see the data. So you know that you're saving money and it should, it will equate to dollars in your pocket throughout the life of the system. So we do this for our customers as part of the process. And we might ask the question in a broader picture, why is the federal government and why is Hawaii state government rewarding people for taking energy efficiency measures like this? Answer, our biggest export of dollars is to fossil fuel to foreign countries. And when we, the more we use efficient equipment like this, the less electricity we use, and the less we have to import, so we're not pouring out those dollars. And then the customer, be he or she a homeowner or a large business, they are reducing their utility costs. They're able to keep that money in their pocket and hopefully reinvest it in our, for our hope, to bring in even more energy efficient equipment. And all of that, as you're reducing your electricity use, you're reducing your production of carbon dioxide, which is the greenhouse sketch, which is warming up the entire earth. Yes. So far we've gotten in Hawaii, we've gotten away just utterly blissfully. I mean, we had a beautiful winter last year was beautiful, but much of the rest of the world is literally sweltering away. And one of these days, it's going to hit us and it's going to hit us a big time. So the more action may more proactive we are now to reduce CO2 production better, we will be and we lead the world to Hawaii. I go to conventions and Hawaii is one of the leaders in the nation. Thank you, Howard. Great, great points. I do want to add to not only do we install an e-gauge on your system, I actually forecast using, you know, a spreadsheet how much cash you'll save over a period of time after the system pays for itself. And, you know, at, at times businesses that shared with me their eco bill, and it's been anywhere from 39 to 40 to 44 cents per kilowatt hour. And after you pay off your system, you create cash flow for your business. It's incredible the amount of money that a business can save while using the tax credits, the cash rebates, et cetera. It's a big amount of money that businesses can put back into it. Business owners and residents can put back into their their pockets. Yeah, and we're keeping dollars in Hawaii rather than exporting those dollars overseas. Yes, sir. Absolutely, absolutely. So there's there's a couple game change game changers that are happening with our constant. It's called it's considered in the in the department of energy US Department of Energy is considered concentrating solar thermal power energy technology. So with that technology, one of the game changers is in President Biden's investing in America again. There is a elective pay or also known as the direct pay methodology which enables not for profits state, local municipalities, tribal, another US territory should take advantage of tax credits. Well, actually, it's a cash rebate because non for profits of these entities don't don't pay taxes and don't have tax credits, but you can actually get cash through the this new program that the inflation reduction enacted. So that's very exciting for those those entities. Right. And as we draw to a close, I should make it clear that I'm with the Hawaii State Energy Office State Government entity. We are not endorsing need on clean energy. No, not at all. Thank you. Simply featuring this company because there's so much in the forefront there in the cutting edge of energy reduction, nor is this in endorsed by our sponsors here. So with that being said, though, and I fully acknowledge that this is not a commercial for SunTrack nor need on clean energy, but we do have a system going in at Bilger Hall in the University of Hawaii at Manoa. We are we are actively installing doing that install now. So we we are collaborating with our local government to get this technology and to save taxpayer money. Yeah, very appropriate because again, Hawaii was the first state to declare 100% clean energy as a goal. And now we're moving to the UH Manoa campus to this sounds like it's going to be a demonstration project. Yes, sir. It is it's a small unit and we want to prove our technology and we're very confident it'll prove all. So we have we're installing it there. And lastly, if I may, because I know we're running out of time, there's a company Easy Roots that their mission is to provide rapid profits for produced agriculture with challenging issues such as starting and operating cultivation facilities because there's high costs. So they're using SunTrack with their HVAC systems and setting up at a much reduced cost, implementing the reduction inflation reduction tax credits. They and you know sustainability with agriculture or controlled environments. This is going to be good for self sufficiency in growing our next generation agriculture. So it's it's pretty exciting that they're taking this technology and again, taking this technology to the United Arab Emirates and in the US in deserts and where you have very harsh conditions, not conducive for agriculture. So we're really excited about Easy Roots taking this to the next level. Yeah, in addition to climate change, there will be a food crisis because of the increasing global temperatures. There's whole areas of the world now, especially the Horn of Africa East Africa that is literally drying up before our eyes and it's driving out the agricultural people who have been there for centuries and centuries and centuries. There's just no way for them to make a living. And so they're headed for the cities and the cities are already overcrowded. So very, very sad situation. And this is just going to get worse and worse and worse. So to the extent that we can start to grow food in controlled environments at a very low energy cost, that's going to really, really, really benefit just literally billions of people. We have hundreds of millions of people on the brink of starvation already. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We should be very fortunate, feel fortunate, but I know people are struggling as well. So our job is really to help businesses succeed and people put money in their pockets and be more efficient. And we just want to improve the life in here in Hawaii and around the world. And I know we have the most beautiful climate in the world and the most beautiful agricultural growing climate in the world. But still, I know there are experiments out in the middle of the island where they're growing food in greenhouses carefully controlled, very low energy use, maybe thanks to your technology. And they are growing food at least twice as rapidly as you could in the, in the great outdoors. So maybe come into your grocery store near you in the next few years. Yes. Yes. It's definitely optimized for growth. They know the, they know the light patterns and they know, you know, what's, what's optimal temperature and, and it's, it's, they can produce it really fast and efficiently. Yes. And not subjected to harsh winds. I think wind is a big factor or over too much rain or, you know, those things are, are now controlled and won't be impact negatively impacted in those situations. And on that very cherry note, Stephen Sasaki, thank you very much for representing need on clean energy and congratulations to you. And let's get a lot of systems in there so we can reduce the demand for electricity and the production of the CO2. So Howard Wigg, Code Green, Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you very much, our esteemed audience and see you next time. Hawaii.com. Mahalo.