 We've all heard about bringing high-tech businesses to Hawaii, so we don't have to depend—our economy doesn't have to depend on all those retail operations that don't quite pay enough to pay for a home in Hawaii. Well, here is an instance of a high-tech business coming to Hawaii, and when they succeed by George, we're going to have that high-tech money coming in here, too. It gives me great pleasure today to introduce Stephanie Jurgensen, not executive account manager of Carbon Lighthouse. It is a high-tech company that is different from other energy saving companies, and we will delve deeply into that. Stephanie, welcome to the program. Great. Thanks for having me, Howard. A pleasure to be here. Looking forward to talking about a whole bunch of good things. Now, first, if you could tell us a little background about where Carbon Lighthouse originated and how it made its way into Hawaii. I'd be happy to do so. So, Carbon Lighthouse was founded in 2010 in San Francisco, and our founders, Brendan Milstein and Raphael Rosen, actually have been friends since kindergarten. So, it's a great lifelong story for them. Friends since kindergarten, they attended Harvard together and, in fact, were physics lab partners. After college, went their separate ways a little bit, but both of them share a passion for solving our climate crisis, and knew that together they could be a catalyst for change. So, Brendan and Raphael established Carbon Lighthouse, whose mission is to stop climate change, and recognizing that 40 percent of global emissions, excuse me, 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., 20 percent globally, come from buildings. They wanted to form a different kind of energy service company. Now, there are any number of companies out there that specialize in reducing energy use and improving the quality of life in buildings. So, how is Carbon Lighthouse different from all other such companies? In a lot of different ways. If you'd allow me to give you an analogy of how we look at the energy efficiency space in buildings. I love analogies. So, let's tell a brief story here, and let's imagine that you and I, instead of in the studio, we are cattle renters in Texas, and we're on our land, and there's oil shooting from the ground, and I think there might be a visual to show this here. There we are. There's the oil. So, here's our family excited for joy because likely we're going to be very wealthy. However, to make that happen, there's a lot of financial and operational risk that we would need to take on. So, we could pick up the phone and call a geologist and have them help us determine what exactly the resources are on the ground. You and I may run down to our local Ace Hardware Store or City Mill and buy some PVC piping, build a drill, build a refinery, and ultimately sell that oil as gas at a gas station to turn that into financial value. However, more likely we're going to run in the house, pick up the phone, and not call the geologist, but call Shell or Exxon, and we're going to ask them to take on that operational and financial risk of turning those reserves into financial value for us. So, Carbon Lighthouse, ironically, being an environmental company, models our business after big oil, where we want to be that entity that real estate owners run into their office, pick up the phone and call to take on the operational and financial risk of uncovering their efficiency reserves or hidden inefficiencies in their building, and through our efficiency production, turn that into guaranteed financial value. Wow. Sounds good. Sounds like a performance contracting company, but I bet you can tell me how Carbon Lighthouse is different from all other performance contracting companies. Absolutely, and thanks for asking because that's a great point. So, it's not a performance contract or a shared savings model, but Carbon Lighthouse guarantees a financial value. So, let's say, for example, we find $100,000 of savings in a building, and we write $100,000 into our contract of guaranteed savings. This would be $100,000 annually. Correct. Yeah, thanks for clarifying. If we fall short one year and we deliver $80,000, that's on us to deliver the remainder, and so we simply write a check to make up the difference. However, on the flip side, even better, if we overperform, and on average, we overperform by 10%, if we overperform and find $110,000 one year, all of that remainder, all of that additional savings stays with the building, and we don't take a piece of that. You don't take a piece of that. We don't take a piece of that additional savings. In essence, you're working for free, then. How nice of you. That's not true. We are a for-profit company, so our founders absolutely believe they want to make it easy and profitable for building owners to reduce carbon emissions, and we're a part of that, too. Is this a deep, dark secret about how you are going to put some money in your pocket? No, not at all. We're very transparent about that. We target a profit margin, and we, and in describing our process, can kind of explain a little bit more of this, but we do charge a service fee to guarantee savings. But if now's a good time, we could talk about that process? Absolutely, because I've been in this field for a long time, and you're teaching me something new here. I'm excited to do that. I've actually learned all of this very recently, too, having just been with Carbon Lighthouse for five months, so it's fun to be able to teach this to someone who's been in the energy space for a while. So our process is essentially three steps. The first step, we deploy sensors like this one here, and we deploy hundreds of these throughout the building, and hundreds of sensors we leave in place for a month or two, and they're gathering data on one to five-minute intervals. If we do that math, hundreds of sensors, one to two months, one to five-minute intervals, we're looking at an original data set that's literally millions of new data points. This is what allows us to uncover those hidden inefficiencies in buildings, and then find more efficient ways of using the same equipment that's already in the building. Rather than just going after the obvious stuff, the obvious stuff is lighting, HVAC, air conditioning system, power. That's it, and you're going to go after a whole bunch of other little energy using? Well, we do focus on HVAC and lighting. However, it's having this original data set that allows us to uncover these inefficiencies that haven't been discovered before. So for example, in a building where there might be the most up-to-date equipment that's very efficient, there might be the most advanced building management or energy management system, might be a very experienced on-site engineering team. However, they just simply haven't had visibility to this amount of data. So that's what's enabling us to uncover those hidden efficiencies. Additionally, it's our software that our engineers have spent hundreds of thousands of hours over the last eight years developing and are continuing to improve and develop. The software analyzes the data, then finding those more efficient ways of running the same equipment to deliver the same comfort and sometimes are often improved upon that comfort for tenants and guests in a building. You know, that brings up an analogy. When you go for a medical checkup, the doctor can maybe take your pulse, take your blood pressure. You're fine, get out of here. Or he can order any number of blood tests and a lot of other tests to look for your whole lymph system and everything else and get way, way, way down deep into how your system works as a whole in detail. Is that a pretty good analogy? It's a great one. I love it, especially because my background is actually in health care and my colleague in the Honolulu office here with me often uses a similar analogy saying that a building management system is like a stethoscope. However, the data that we uncover and collect and then analyze with our Carbon Lighthouse Unified Engineering System software is like an MRI or those additional blood tests. And it brings to mind another aspect of this. You referred to the fact that in your mythical building, the engineers have been there recently and they're the highest qualified types. In my experience with buildings, sometimes the engineers who were there when the equipment was put in place are no longer there and they hand off a manual to the next engineer or manager and the manager says, oh yeah, that's kind of interesting and puts it off in a corner and then it gets covered up with other papers. And he really doesn't understand the mechanisms of the HVAC system as the most complex. So he might not understand all the parameters and know what to look for, in which case it sounds like your system would uncover and any deficiencies that have developed within the first one, two, three, four years. You're right. And actually uncovering that is really just a piece of that first step of our process. So uncovering those hidden inefficiencies, modeling thousands of ways of running the same equipment more efficiently, that first step is all done at no cost to the building owner. Our next step is not just uncovering and modeling more efficient ways, but actually implementing the solution. And this is where we're very different from other players in the energy efficiency space. Because our deliverable is guaranteed financial savings, we're going to implement those changes, manage that full implementation and ensure it meets our standards. That's where the savings start flowing. However, the third and final step, performance management is arguably the most important and possibly the most differentiating, as that's where we guarantee the savings over the term of a contract most often 10 years. So we'll stay with a building and in that scenario that you talked about where possibly an engineer was on site when equipment was put in, but has since retired or moved to a different building, there are changes that happen. And if we stay with a building monitoring energy consumption utilizing our software, if we see a deviation from what we've expected, that flags our engineers to them pick up the phone and call the current onsite team and investigate. It might be a change of hands in building management. It could be that something was put in manual mode for maintenance and then not put back in its automatic startup sequence. Those deviations would cost money if it weren't for carbon lighthouse monitoring that. That brings up a related analogy. Say you've been going to the same doctor for your physical checkups in general for 10 years and you walk into the doctor's office and there's a new young face. What happened to Dr. Suzuki? Oh, he retired. I'm Dr. Wang. Oh, how do you do? The thing is that Dr. Suzuki, he has 10 years of accumulated wisdom as to how your body system works. And all of a sudden that's gone. He can instinct. Didn't we have some trouble with your liver? Ms. Juergensen, let's see. The new doctor has no knowledge of that. So same principle with a new engineer or new manager. Absolutely. You walk in the door and Dr. Suzuki sees a look on your face and might know what's wrong. An engineer in a building might hear an odd noise and know what piece of equipment to check on if they've been in that building for a while, but we want to maintain that consistency for the building and be responsible for insurance savings. That's a great analogy because I talked to, especially the mechanical engineers, the old navy guys who used to manage the great big engines in the ship. They say, you know, I was going along one day and something didn't sound right. I heard a little squeak there and sure enough, something is not lubricated and he goes in and he lubricates it. The potential disaster is averted there. But on that cheery note, we need to take a break. Ms. Juergensen, energy, no, carbon lighthouse. Carbon lighthouse, yes. And we will be back in one minute. Think Tech Hawaii code green. Aloha. I want to invite all of you to talk story with John Wahee every other Monday here at Think Tech Hawaii. And we have special guests like Professor Colin Moore from the University of Hawaii who joins us from time to time to talk about the political happenings in this state. Please join us every other Monday. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that's just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on thinktechawai.com, 1 p.m. on Friday afternoons. And then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up. And please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keeping you safe. Aloha. Good afternoon, Howard Wigg. Think Tech Hawaii code green. My honorable guest is Stephanie Jurgensen. What is your title again? Executive Account Manager. Executive Account Manager, so impressive. As it is, yes. Carbon lighthouse. We left off with giving an analogy between what distinguishes carbon lighthouse from other such companies. And you talked about staying with the building. And you're talking about the fact that building managers, engineers have a pretty substantial turnover. I speak from experience, having dealt with many, many of them over the years. But carbon lighthouse stays with that building for 10 years. And what we have found is when a new building opens up something called commissioning is really, really important. And it doesn't always get done with new buildings. Commissioning is when the, all the systems are supposedly in place, running properly. A third party comes in and checks the lighting, the lighting controls, checks the HVAC, the HVAC controls is everything running as it should. And very often it's not. So that is the function of the commissioner. And then we have DX retro commissioning where another or same third party goes in a year or even two years later asking himself, is the building still running as it was supposed, as it did run perfectly when it was brand new. And you, you people serve that kind of commissioning and retro commissioning of the function. Actually, you know what? I'll add to that because that's not exactly true because retro commissioning will make sure that the building equipment is functioning as it was intended originally. A lot may have changed. Some pieces of equipment might have been changed out the function of the building. There might be a change in intended use of the space. So carbon lighthouse's goal is to look at the building holistically and deliver that whole building savings on average 10 to 30% off of a utility bill. And we have to consider the interactive and cascading effects of every system and every loop in the building and not just look at individual components and returning them to their original function. Retro commissioning, although it has its purpose, isn't going to guarantee financial savings. Instead, working with carbon lighthouse, we will find the most efficient way of running your existing equipment, understanding the interactive and cascading effects that different systems and loops have on each other. I like that word interactive because it stick to the medical analogy. The doctor prescribes you this prescription and some other doctor prescribes you this. It turns out that they have contraindications. Same way, this system over here might be running a foul of this system over here in a building, and your task is to uncover that. Very simply, it might be finding more efficient ways, might be as simple as turn up these two fans in this pump down for net energy efficiency savings, but you can't not consider what happens further down the line in that loop. So with the goal of delivering guaranteed financial savings, we have to consider all that, which is what makes us quite different from retro commissioning. And in terms of all of your sensors and speaking of interactions, if you have good lighting controls and lights are able to be off a lot of the time because the spaces that are supposed to be occupied are not occupied, so the lights are off with good controls, this reduces the heat produced in the building, which can reduce the air conditioning load and so forth. Another example of interconnectivity. Yep, absolutely. And some of the different measures that are parameters that our sensors are looking at when we're gathering data include occupancy, also a thermodynamic map, so to speak, of the building, looking at temperatures, humidity, relative humidity in the building, in spaces, equipment rooms where rooftop equipment is also outside, amperage, voltage, power factor, other parameters that we're looking at. So all of this needs to be considered in finding the most efficient ways of running existing equipment. A good example being yesterday, I was born and raised on this island and yesterday was one of the most climatically miserable days we have ever had. It might go over well in deep Mississippi in August, but not in Hawaii. It was terrible and a good HVAC system will sense that outside humidity, sense that heat and adjust accordingly. And then when the trade wind breezes come back, it'll back off because it'll be running pretty well full bore at that point. Then the trade winds come back, the humidity goes down, zoom. It modulates accordingly. And I think that's, with all your sensors, I think that's exactly what you're trying to do. Right, so we would be finding those more efficient ways based on what the inputs are telling us, they're telling the equipment, and then potentially programming an additional code into a building management system so that depending on what the sensors are delivering as the input, we can then determine the output automatically so that the building engineer doesn't have to go and make those adjustments throughout the day as the cloud rolls in or the trades come. And another complication which I'm sure you deal with is the fact that yesterday, the miserable day was Sunday, so most buildings, commercial buildings are office type, are very sparsely occupied, so the AC system has to adjust to that also. And then the zoning, I'm sure you go into zoning also. There's people in this part of the building, this part of the building and the rest of the building is vacant. Absolutely. So adding those additional sensors and wiring to take in additional inputs and then automatically make changes. And that, I'm sure you have something to say about health and comfort? So most often making these changes can improve tenant comfort in a building. So we are not looking to take away the air conditioning or suggest that we raise the temperatures. We understand that for building owners, whether it's the hospitality market, the office space, education, industrial, regardless of who the occupants are, guests, students, tenants, tenant comfort is of the utmost importance. Without that, there isn't a whole lot of reason for the building. So we're taking that into consideration, always keeping that top of mind and often improving upon that. In the old HVAC systems, including in my building, state government building, no surprise, the system goes off on Friday evening at 4.30. And it doesn't, there's three-day weekend, it just stays off until Monday morning again. And that certainly saves energy. But what if we had an advanced system where it would sense, oh, Mr. Wake came into his office, let's give him at least a little bit of air there. A very, very, very little energy expense. Absolutely. Or a system that also is continuing to monitor that after changes are put in place. One example I love to use about our performance management step four that guarantees the savings is there was a building in San Francisco where a cold spell came through. And so the building engineer had to start up the building hours earlier in order to make it comfortable before the tenants arrived in the morning. And what our system flagged was that after that cold spell passed, the building was still starting hours earlier. And so that flagged our performance management engineer to call the onsite team and investigate. And it was simple in that case where they just had to put it back in a manual, I'm sorry, in automatic program startup mode. It would have cost the building an additional $20,000 a year had that not been caught by carbon lighthouse and our software. Beautiful example. And we commit the time and the resources. That one was simple. But if it takes coming back to site to correct to make changes, we commit the time and resources to do that. Speaking of time and resources, we only have a few minutes left. I believe we have some examples of projects. If the next slide could come up please. What in the world? These two very handsome people, they're discussing something or other. Yeah. So we've had a lot of success here in Hawaii. And so far, we've worked with Alexander Baldwin as one great example. And this is at Manoa Marketplace. The upgrades that we've done at their Manoa Marketplace and the next couple of slides, I believe, are Pearl Highland Center. The upgrades that we've done there have resulted in reducing nearly 10,000 tons of carbon and saving over 22,000 barrels of oil. That's probably a few dollars too. Absolutely. It is. I'll let you do the math yourself there. But Alexander Baldwin is committed to enhancing the local community. And this partnership enables them to be good stewards of the environment as well as improving their carbon footprint. I like that. I live in Manoa, so I'm in that marketplace all the time. I like that. And they didn't chop down the trees either. There's a little controversy there. So if we could look at the next slide, which I think is Pearl Highlands. Yep. Oh, no, no, no, this is a restaurant row. So here, this is the historic Waterfront Plaza, owned by the Shidler Group in downtown Honolulu, where Restaurant Row is, which I'm sure many of your viewers are familiar with. So we have a pilot starting with them this fall, where we're deploying these sensors throughout these seven five-story buildings that make up the Waterfront Plaza. And we're excited to be working with the Shidler Group. Like Alexander and Baldwin, they're a very well-respected commercial real estate company in Hawaii. In this pilot here, we're expecting to uncover significant efficiency reserves and turn that through efficiency production into guaranteed savings for the Shidler Group and significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Okay. And you know, this complex is a lot bigger than most of us think. We go to a restaurant there and, oh, that's all there is to it, but no, there's all these office buildings. Great point. So it's seven five-story buildings making up 535,000 square feet of space, a building space. Is there any chance of us reversing these slides that possible to Pearl Highlands? Ah, this is Pearl Highlands. Right. So the Pearl Highlands, when I spoke of the Alexander and Baldwin work that we've done with them, it included Manoa Marketplace, Pearl Highlands Center, and Kakaako Commerce Center. So that was a part of that 10,000 tons of carbon reduction and 22,000 barrels of oil saved. Oh, okay. No wonder your numbers were so high. Right. There were three sites there, and we're very excited to continue rolling out across AME's portfolio and our partnership with them. Now, this looks like somebody looking at a complex piece of equipment here. And this, I believe, is also at the Pearl Highlands Center. Yes. So placing a sensor. One of our sensors is actually an ultrasonic flow meter, so possibly taking a reading of the flow rate through the pipe there. And this would be in the HVAC, the air conditioning system. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, just speaking of that, very often there's a lot of water waste in an HVAC system, so this young lady may be monitoring for that. So if we could jump forward, I think we have a final slide featuring Mr. Tesla. Elon Musk has been in the news on steroids lately, but you probably have something less exotic to talk to. Well, I think it's quite exotic. In fact, we have lots of success stories on our website that I think are very exotic, but Tesla is one of them. And we share a vision with improving sustainability throughout the world with Tesla. So this is a great partnership with us. It was a great example of how our carbon lighthouse process and engineers were able to uncover additional hidden inefficiencies. After Tesla, you can imagine being an energy efficiency company, they have an advanced on-site team or experienced on-site team advanced equipment. They'd already worked with third parties to improve energy efficiency. And even considering that, we were still able to deliver about $91,000 of annual savings on top of what had already been found by other third parties. Good Lord. So you out engineered the Tesla-type engineer. Can you imagine the brain power that comes in and out of that building there? And you managed to uncover more hidden savings. Uncover hidden savings. And all of that was at no upfront cost for Tesla, which is another great part of that story. Yes, yes, yes. And Mr. Musk can use every penny he can get his hands on these days. So he's grateful to you for that. On that cheery note, we need to wrap up. We just got really warmed up about time to bid fond farewell. Ms. Stephanie Jurgensen of Carbon Lighthouse, thank you so much for being my guest. This is Howard Wigg, Code Green, Think Tech Hawaii. See you next time.