 Think tech away civil engagement lives here Well, okay, we're back with my goodness. It's Friday. It's Friday James. That's James McKay's with Emma resco He is an energy Energy solution partner. Yep with Emma resco, which is a national company national company somewhat 1,100 people involved about that now Yes, like all energy companies growing pretty quickly. It's a busy time in the world And your beat is here in Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've been in Hawaii nearly seven years now. Yeah I'm the basically the business Development manager for the Hawaii region. Yeah, so I report up to the manager in the west coast out of Seattle So I'm a resco have been doing business in Hawaii for probably five or six years Kind of I think now we could we've we've the company have found out We made the mistake of trying to manage the business from the east coast out of Boston, which for a few reasons Hawaii You can't do that. Yeah, it's been a very painful learning lesson. So, yeah I'm more doing damage control than business development right now So my role is to kind of go back and look at the projects We've done sort of pick up the the open and items that I'm not really that satisfied nor the client Yeah, and just sort of get them fixed up in the most expedient way possible projects is Emma resco done in Hawaii So the biggest project we've had was with the state of Hawaii. It's the department of accounting and general services. So known as DAGs It's just opposite the road from the state capital So there their headquarters is obviously high profile and they're actually the landlord for all the most of the state building So, you know, you talk about the entities like Department of Health, which obviously is a critical service within the state That they're focusing on their own mission of what they should be doing and the the landlord tenant responsibilities is really under DAGs so they they own and operate the facilities on behalf of the state and Well, what Amarisco did as a an ESCO is the acronym an ESCO energy services company there are big companies that have it's a very powerful and potentially very both profitable and equitable Relationship between the client which in this case would be DAGs with the state and our company Which is kind of the general contractor for a big I call it like an energy umbrella So the energy solutions company competes in a deal which is called an energy solutions Contract and it's usually a performance contract. It's an energy solutions performance contractor ESPC It's a show of metrics in order to get paid Yeah, generally, you know like any contract the devil's in the details as you know as an attorney There's a lot of words in those contracts and a lot of words can change the impact of those So, yeah, it's a it's a it's a big sort of Expedient way to get a big project going faster than you might have done with a piecemeal project Because the key things are a couple things is performance base, which I think is critical And so the the client is actually not putting any money on the line That's just the key point so a lot of the the projects that we see in Hawaii To address what's called deferred maintenance So buildings that have a lot of infrastructure, but they just haven't been keeping up with things like air conditioning and you know You've got a unit that's there. It's working But it's definitely not working very inefficient technology is changing so quickly, especially with lights, you know solar PV that that That the technology in solar hasn't changed Expediently as much as LEDs and air conditioning and other pumps and motors and stuff But if you just have a widget you've bought 20 years ago, and you think it's working It's it's drawing a lot more energy than it should be in today's modern world and the way technology is changing So we sort of take the approach that that's under the label of deferred maintenance So it's maintenance that should have been done on that equipment Usually a lot earlier than when we were a viewer. So it's a whole bunch of things. Oh, yeah, yeah What's the what's the principal metric that We MRS go have helped DAGs by what? Reducing costs of operating the building. Yeah, it's using energy costs of operating the building reducing of kilowatt hours But obviously, you know when you look at something like even though we didn't do Lighting it in an LED technology. We just upgraded the fluorescent tubes is what I've sort of seen so far Things that when we address the energy side of it can also have Ancillary positive positive benefits on the operation side of it say for example LEDs that lasts a lot longer than other types of bulbs Especially like an in big warehouse where you're looking at getting a giant sort of crane up there to change out lights And when they fail a small studio, well, yeah This one you probably should be able to do this yourself pretty easily But you know, I consulted for a couple years at Marine Corps Base Hawaii and they've got big hangers there that yeah And there you know the guys are working on old lights that are failing and therefore the light quality in all the technologies The light quality decreases as the light ages and LED is usually like a binary works or it doesn't it doesn't usually Decrease a lot. So the problem you get in that kind of thing is where the facility guy is like, okay I don't have that much money this light still kind of works. It looks okay. We can put the money somewhere else We will just wait until it breaks. But meanwhile the mechanic that's working on a helicopter Can't really see what he's doing that they usually have to wear headlamps anyway But you know, it's not the ideal situation. So the the energy services procurement contract comes in and says all right You've got let's say, you know, UH Minora is a case study hate to kind of dig on them But they're upwards of over half a billion dollars with a B and deferred maintenance in just that one campus alone So, you know, we that was a headline not too long ago. Yeah, it's it's a big headline It's one that should be taken very seriously. I think and you know, that can really be related to transportation as well because that's the infrastructure that we could be upgrading could also rapidly Accelerate pun intended the clean energy transition of Hawaii's sort of You gotta be smart to do it You gotta be a risk taker. I'm a risk. I was doing this kind of this format all over, you know, the country I take it. Yeah. Yeah. In other words, we'll save you money We're not gonna get paid unless we save you money and our and our payment our compensation is based on how much we save you Yeah, it's an agreed. It's a joint shared energy savings plan, which is guaranteed by the measures that we install So we do a big order to the facilities. We address what's called an energy savings measure and energy conservation measure is usually the others Yeah, these in as energy, you know, it's full of acronyms, right? So energy conservation measure and ECM So there's a giant spreadsheet that sort of addresses. What do we have today? What should be there tomorrow the savings and then we work out how when we put up all the money to upgrade your facilities How do we get paid back? So, you know, we don't go out of business and lose everything But you guys get an upgraded facility at our cost. You gotta be smart. You have to be able to look around the corner Are you managing these contracts or when you say developer? Are you are you Negotiating in the first place or are you managing them in the second place? It would be a bit of both I've only been there not even quite nine months yet. So I was in Originally moved to Hawaii for the solar energy industry and worked in a lot of Capacities so you had experience in solar and energy renewable energy before you even came Absolutely, I think I think that's really going in Australia. Okay. No, I moved from Arizona. Yeah, ironically the value of the Sun Accent James. Yeah, I know it's a little hard to understand. I understand but I thought they were gonna put subtitles up But I haven't Anyway, but yeah, no, I actually worked out worked for the first solar company in America It's a ee solar founded by a brilliant guy called David Katz. And so he started solar in the 70s he was actually the first person that bought a solar module to implement and Ironically where Hawaii is now was actually for the marijuana industry in Humboldt County because there were a lot of off-grid silties So yeah, the off-grid growing Places were driving up and down to get car batteries to power their little cabins in the hills to grow pot And David being a really really smart guy and he was a nuclear physicist and just didn't want to work for the Navy He wanted to do something useful with his life He thought, you know, that's not my Kuliana to travel the world and do that stuff So he left and he found his path just through the money in The sort of cash industry of growing marijuana and then created the first off-grid system to help Refuel these batteries because he was too lazy to go down and get new batteries in Humboldt County So but he's a very ethical guy. I learned a lot from him and most importantly I learned The most important thing about the solar industry is we shouldn't just be plowing on more modules in the generation You want to optimize your energy load? So you actually minimize your energy usage first and the best solar install is the smallest install for that site So the biggest mistake I've seen in Hawaii, which is quite a sad one is where a solar company comes in and just sees a giant roof And says oh wow, let's fill up this roof with solar modules go sign here and people like oh, that'd be great Sign it off and usually in the agreement that we have with the utility when we go to interconnect The customer doesn't get any benefit to the over generation So it's going back to the utilities grid and they're just going to sell your energy to your neighbor at their profit So you've made the investment. Yeah, if you bought it. Yeah, yeah So, you know, there's the solar companies that do it on a third-party agreement where it's a power purchase agreement We'll never do that because they know that they're not going to get the money back So, you know, it's a complicated industry But as you say key planning is critical and that's where we do it now Is that we've been doing kind of the bread and butter of the escrow world of facilities and upgrading things And so as Hawaii's said our ambitious goal for 2040 the 100% renewable We've now got a aligning transportation goal of trying to get clean renewable energy into the transportation sector Which is very ambitious as well. So we'll reel it back just one one thought about, you know The concept in general it sounds like this is a kind of aftermarket in other words The low-hanging fruit was the guy wants a coverage roof with solar. That's the low-hanging fruit He'll sign anything somebody gives him a spreadsheet, you know, and he'll buy it But the secondary aspect of that is We're gonna do a more refined analysis on you We're gonna cut this this baby more carefully. We're gonna look for efficiency. We're not gonna oversell you We're gonna we're gonna find out exactly what you need exactly will work best And then we're gonna put our brain cells on that yeah and give you a project that is really suited for you Absolutely instead of you know overselling you know, and I think it's an important point to make is that's where we are in the continuum Planning selling developing solar at least solar panels in the state. Yeah, absolutely Yeah, and that's kind of where I've been well suited for it now that when I you got it had it got harder to sell Solar systems so a lot of solar companies did struggle sort of it's starting about five years ago maybe and so the the commission structure that unfortunately the solar companies are on Incentivized that increase Bigger the better because highly good commission, you know, essentially by me selling solar the right way By look talking about their lights and their recognition and people are like I thought you were the solar guy I'm like no no this is important that it reduced my commission, which obviously my bosses weren't happy with but That's the right way to do it So this this evolution now has come to where you're looking at a facility It has to factor in everything and then bigger picture scale out from that one client or organization to Hawaii Yeah, we have to look at how how does where we're moving with all this clean? We're not gonna get to 100% until we start thinking like this absolutely And to your credit you do and the morisco does and that's where you are now that you know the big question And it's a hard one for me because I don't have an answer I do not know what your answer is going to be on this How do you take that kind of thinking and apply it to transportation not easy? How do you do? Yeah, it's it's a it is a challenge and I've just just found out it's unfortunately more of a challenge And I hoped it was going to be so this the city County of Honolulu now is now I think just about to end their first month-long trial of their first electric bus here Which was donated by a company or not donated it's on loan. Unfortunately, it would be great if they just gave it to us But you know their sort of seven eight hundred thousand dollars for one bus Which sounds like a lot But I think the guy who was there at the Oahu transportation service and said the average buses You know six six hundred grand anyway Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So number two in DTS, right? Yeah, so it's great to see them moving that way but we have a lot more buses and The the thing is that people think you know, I'm going to go green on the consumer side residential You know, I'm gonna buy a Tesla that that's great. And they if you're just plugging into the grid Essentially, you're not guaranteed to be filling up from a renewable energy anyway You need to have that renewable energy supply So I'm I'm proud that the state's moving towards clean transportation But in my mind where the ideal solar system Generating power is where the load or where the demand is going to be so soon as I heard this I'm like, okay Well, if all the buses are just going to plug into a grid that is still owned and operated by HECO And they're not rapidly ramping out their renewable energy supply We've got a kind of look at a model where maybe we look at a giant solar canopy Where the buses are parked at night and where the buses are on their routes or routes Depends where you come from and you can you could have them plug in just even rapidly to charge while they're waiting And there's a couple benefits that the utility would get from that is that you know If in partnership they can also partner into this deal But also the buses are essentially like giant moving batteries and the batteries are good for Electrical issues on the grid like if there's spikes and oversupply of solar the solar energy instead of kind of being wasted Or in other islands are actually being run to ground that it's actually wasting that extra generation That could be used to instead of dump it to ground and waste it You know if the bus is parked for five minutes jump dump it into that battery from wherever you can find it Absolutely, so we've been in a longer vision. We've got all these moving batteries running around a wahoo. There's a bunch of solar Generations. Oh, yeah, so yeah mobile battery mobile battery. That's it. So it's called vehicle to grid So it's using the vehicle to charge the grid and vice versa And who makes these the same company as the bus? That's the Achilles Hill I've just kind of find out so I visit a visitor with Proterra who's out in Oakland and I've been talking to BYD So they're the big two companies Proterra is kind of like an American grown company BYD started in China They've set up shop in LA LA There's slightly different models So the one that the city counties just started with is the Proterra model BYD is coming in very shortly after for another month. So they're going to test them What I was hoping for was that they'd already had here's your business plan for putting in these giant parking structures Here's maybe the extra storage you need on those sites and here's the fast charges that you can rapidly charge all our buses and go in and out But they're focused on the bus themselves not that part of it yet When we come back from this break, I want to I want to tell you my my vision And then I like you to try to shoot it down. Love it. I'm sure you'll have a good time Great. That's James McKay. He always has a good time. We'll be right back after this break Thank you. Hello everyone. I'm disordo brown the co-host of human humane architecture Which is seen on think tech hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m And with the show's host martin disbang we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian islands and how it not only affects the way we live But other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well So join us for human humane architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m on think tech hawaii Aloha, I'm keely akina and I'm here every other week on Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m on think tech hawaii's Hawaii together In hawaii together we talk with some of the most fascinating people in the islands About working together working together for a better economy government and society So I invite you into our conversation every other monday at 2 p.m on think tech hawaii broadcast network Join us for hawaii together. I'm keely akina. Aloha Okay, we're back. We're alive. I told you we come back. We came back. I told you we did james mckay amoresco an energy solution partner and Trying to develop these efficiency concepts around renewable energy for all kinds of things in hawaii. Yep. So Let me let me offer you a model and you can tell me. I mean, I agree. We absolutely have to fix the bus system Buses are a great prospect buses can move lots of people Buses can take cars off off the highway not for everybody not for the, you know Small contractor who has to have his kit in his truck can't take him off the highway But for most people commuters, of course buses. We had a lot of buses. Everybody says we got a great bus system Okay, most of those buses except this one Temporary, you know, experimental electric bus are fossil fuel buses and they work fine. Everybody likes them, you know Not to pay a little but there are some some people who are entitled to a discount and all this Um, you know, like it retired people can can buy, you know, 35 dollar annual bus pass. Yeah, it's great It's not so good if you're a cyclist behind one. Yeah, well, that's that's another issue. Anyway, that's okay And then you know, so we got to kind of keep keep our eye on the air But let me let me give you my model. Okay Um, the ordinary bus costs a lot less than 750 thousand dollars, right? Which is the electric cost the electric bus and to read Reflee, uh, you know the bus system in oahu or anywhere else at 750 a pop is Going to cost a lot of money and there's a lot of resistance because hawaii is not in great shape financially You know, and there's all kinds of issues about financing that kind of expense if I need one I don't know what 500 buses. Yeah, it's gonna cost me a fortune billions. Yeah So how about getting getting getting real in terms of the existing asset using the existing asset And systems and mechanics and workshops, you know that you use to maintain it but getting more fossil fuel buses But loading the highway up with them loading the highway, you know, so if I live in mililani I'm not going to drive my car if I can get on a bus and the bus is free Now this happened on a big island a few years ago before billy kinoe There was a there was a bus system that went from helo to kona for free and if you worked in the hotels This is ideal. You don't have to drive your car spend the gas, you know clog up the highway For that matter take the risk of falling asleep at the wheel after a long shift in a hotel, right? so That was that was very successful. I loved it and it was it was beautiful It can do that. Of course, it's a financing issue also But if I bought 500 buses and I loaded the streets and the freeway up with these buses and I made them cheaper free I'd have everybody in the bus mostly inside from the small contractor I'd everybody in the bus everybody ride in the bus nobody driving congestion dramatically reduced and What what quality of life? You know what I have and I could get on a bus any minute and furthermore and this is where we get ethnic Furthermore, I could create a variable melbourne Remember melbourne. Yeah, yeah There recently The cdb the central business cbd central business district eight eight blocks by eight blocks Trams all the way through at grade level right for free and get anywhere you want the result is a place is bustling with business with restaurants and shops and offices It's unbelievable what happens when you make free transportation. We can follow that model all the cbd Central business district in in oahu it would be loaded with new business because there wouldn't be a parking issue Let's get on the tram or the bus as the case may be now grant you Okay, it's not renewable energy. Maybe you get efficient buses for a few bucks more It's not it's not the you know the dream of electric electric buses But in terms of the result you get reduction in in fossil fuel. I mean reduction in In congestion You get new business You get people having a quality of life where they can do their you know the cell phone activity while they're on the bus instead of being fun stuff You know not even able to make a call while they're driving And so you know everybody wins now. Maybe that's not phase two or three or four It's just phase one, but it goes somewhere Now the challenge I see for that is you got to you got to find the money to buy the buses And you got to find the money to make the buses cheap or free Maybe it's a step transaction kind of thing But in that direction in the space of five years or no more Or maybe a little more we would be able to change the way transportation works in oahu Absolutely, and get everybody on the bus and I would get on the bus myself and you probably would too It was free, you know, that's that's that's your idea. I guess it's not patented yet. You don't have to Yeah, no, I love the model. I think it's it's awesome And I actually didn't know about the big island one. So I'd like to learn more about that You know, I think it's interesting when you have a model like that Uh to look at why it doesn't exist anymore, obviously So that that's an important one. You know, obviously someone in the big island killed that program for a reason And to sort of go back to that. I think it must have been financial because it was free Everything is free as a target. It's like low hanging fruit Right, it's like let's get that for the general fund. You know, I mean, yeah, and that's the wrong vision, right? That you it that's where I think we have enough money on this planet to solve every problem that we have on this planet It's just how you apply that money and having the right people in power to move the money to where it needs to be So I think that's the first thing I'd go to. I'd love to learn more about that program I I love your idea. I actually was not at all a supporter of rail When it was launched and just the concept of just where it was and how it was going to work It just to me didn't seem to make sense for hawaii Uh, you know, it's it's it's too late now to sort of stop that. It's we're way indebted with that project But when in the initial hearings for that project, um, there was a guy who testified I think some model in brazil and their model was the extended buses dedicated lanes in the highways And that that's all you could do in that lane and it was a very I don't think it was free But it was very cheap extremely affordable, you know 10 cents a ride or something So I think that's a great model and actually also to go back to the whole renewable thing, you know I don't have much focus in my life in any sphere. So I'm kind of good at looking at opportunities and connecting dots So as soon as you said it's not renewable I'm just like, well, you know, it should and could be renewable. So we have a great local company here Pacific biodiesel, right? So why not have a mandate and help them Scale up and other other companies that can produce biofuels We've got a great energy or now elemental accelerated company terraviva That's growing crops that are going to be crushed for oil And now they've launched their partnership much more with kamehameha schools and using unused land And that's not a feedstock So they could be planning that in very compromised land that has, you know Toxic chemicals and pesticides where people don't want to grow kale and lettuce and whatever they could be growing Your bus biofuel. So there's no reason why this Should be a very good point that would not be hard to do. Absolutely. Well, it's not going to be easy to do But it's something we should be looking at. We have a system Yeah, we can do it biodiesel Actually, you know works and they're providing biofuels to the airport and to other state facilities And private interests and so you could you could do that and that could be like phase one one a And phase one b by the way might be that as you retire the fossil fuel buses You bring in more renewable type buses, whether it's biofuel buses Actually a fossil fuel and biofuels the same kind of bus really. Yeah, you can run Most diesel buses will run on biodiesel without much of a tweak and i'm definitely not an expert in that area Yeah, I think it's workable. It's not a big deal to convert them And so then you can start bringing in electric buses as the technology gets better as the price, you know Comes down and the important thing is you are you have already Achieved public acceptance of the bus as a way to commute There's a way to get around as a way to do the grid in the central business district So you you will have achieved a big change in conduct and then you can start spending the extra money I love the idea. I think it's a great idea and you know Any commuter now on the h1 is just looking around. Well, I know I do just one person one person one person one person I'm just like this is insane. Absolutely insane. You know, just even when I first moved to the states A long time ago flying over la just seeing all the cars sitting there just In traffic. It's just I just think wow how much oil is getting burnt now now and it's insane I think that every time I drive honestly, yeah, you know, like you say, it's a terrible quality of life Like when if if people did catch a bus, it's not just that you can do other stuff Like people are on their phones. Unfortunately. Anyway, when they drive bad news, it's terrible, right? So there's a health and safety thing. There's a quality of life. There's your whole attention span There's the stress level is like riding a bus if it's convenient and affordable is a huge improvement Not just to the environmental side of the state, but the the economics the whole This is something amorous go could get involved in Well, I've been told we'll never be the first into anything, but we hope to be the second if it's a good idea So yeah, it's a good line. I don't know if I made it up, but it's something like that So, you know, uh, we there's not there's an ownership model It's where we'll all design build own operate maintain. So it's de boom where you know something like Electric bus system would be a bit out of our purview right now But there's no reason why finding the right financing partners that have the same vision you know, we've got Mark from facebook because I can work he might love that idea and say hey, I just saw a show This is a great idea. I'd like to start this and as we go down the pike here in this country Not only in hawaii in this country We find that government is unable to raise the money to do the traditional infrastructure things can't raise the money And what do you do when you reach that problem? And you don't you don't strap everybody for the next 50 years what you do is you bring You know business in you bring private investment And you bring industry in to help solve the problem that's happening more and more You'll see it's happening with health care. It's happening with health right right right So this is this is really an insoluble problem and If you could connect up with with business and they might help fund it, you know, they find a way Amoresco could pencil it out. Couldn't it find a way to make it profitable? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and the key thing is, you know, I look at like say, you know, the uber wealth is I actually have reached out to mark second bird didn't quite connect But I'm still kind of working on that if anyone knows I'd appreciate the lead You know opera has land and Maui so these people that come to Hawaii for the reasons of just the sheer beauty and natural paradise that Hawaii is So I'm like, well, you know, they've got some vested Interest here instead of creating foundations that are giving money around the tour west of the rest of the world Why not build a feasible and really good business model in the state that they obviously love so much to come and invest here Like to me, it's just a no brainer. I wish I was a billionaire be a great billionaire, but Last question. Yeah, it's last question. It's the ghost of Christmas future. It's Charles Dickens. Okay I'm going to give you a world here in Hawaii where on this issue on, you know, congestion and public transportation And transportation in general ground transportation Where we do nothing We just turn our backs on it. We we kick the ramp the ramp the can perpetually down the road And we get all locked up in a failure of consensus or leadership. What happens to us then? I just like to know your thoughts Yeah, uh, that's an interesting question too. Because that to me that was also tied with the development We've got going on here like how appealing the development that's that's grown and that's going to kind of build up the south shore of oahu and um Yeah, it's not a lifestyle. I want to see uh, it's scary to me It personally it like having more cars and more people in less density and just sort of more sprawl I know we're going high-rise, but just you know, ultimately population is the biggest issue Just more people coming to an island even a giant island like australia continent You know at some point you have a carrying capacity. There's definitely a quality of life issue Which is kind of why i'm into the sustainability thing because I think Where we're heading as a species and a planet is a scary place. So I think we we can't Be a tall apathetic about where we are today and where we should be focusing on a positive positive vision tomorrow Because we're already seeing the impacts of where we could be if we don't take serious and rapid action. Yeah James mckay. I'm a resco an energy solutions partner also a thinker. Thank you so much. Thank you, jack. Appreciate the time