 Okay, our flagship energy program for the whole week is right now. So stay by the tube, you know. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. And the name of that program is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. And it's progenitor and creator and supporter for all these years. Sharon Moriwaki. Sharon Moriwaki. Over the top, Sharon. The chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Hi, Sharon. Aloha. And we can talk about the Big Island today. We're going to talk about what's on the horizon for Hawaii County in 2018. And guess what? We have Will Ralston there from the Big Island. But Energy Coordinator, is that what you are? It's the Energy Coordinator. I am called the Energy Coordinator for the last seven years, going almost to eight. Wow, isn't that long? Oh, great job. You know, the people around the world would line up for your job, no kidding, fabulous job. Yeah, I'm sure. Eight on its side is infinity. So that sometimes that's how it feels. Tell us how you're doing. What's going on there? Yeah. So where's your office, Will? You located it with the county building and he left? Isn't he Conan? Aren't you Conan? We're in the Conoside, Leedsilver West Hawaii Civic Center with the PV storage battery and electric vehicles. So government center, that's self-sufficient when the sun shines. 100% renewable plus, so it's 200% renewable from like 10 to 3.30 and it's 100% renewable from 8 to 10 and then 4.30 to 5.30 now. And then, you know, when the sun goes down, obviously we take helical power. So you don't have storage on site yet? Say that again, please. You don't have storage on site yet? So then you can go 24-7? We do. We have a lithium ion battery that was obtained through ARRA funds, American Recovery Reinvestment. Good. We do have a storage battery. So let's talk about the Big Island. You know, here to say that the Big Island is probably ahead of every other island, every single other island on how much, you know, what percentage of renewables against the total. Am I right about that? You are almost right and ultimately right. There is an island out there, the second largest island in the United States. A good friend of mine runs Kodiak Island's electric co-op and they are 99% renewable with, you know, probably the same load as Kauai, mostly from Hydro. They have some wind turbines, some flywheels and yeah, so my friend Darren Scott runs that co-op up in Kodiak Island, Alaska. Wow, in Alaska. I was in the Coast Guard, well the Coast Guard has a big air station in Kodiak, so it's the largest Coast Guard station, correct, and they're the largest load, so it's a lot of similarities to maybe Oahu. Interesting. So what is it then about a Big Island that makes the Big Island such a high-density renewable, you know, experience that we have? What is your percentage, by the way, of renewables as to get a total amount of energy? So it's 54, if you go by the RPS standard, which we all know has changed, but if you go by the renewable portfolio standards, we're at 54.2% in 2016 and we're running about the same 54.29% as of quarter three 2017. So what's your target? Well, with who knew on board, it's projected at 75%, so within two years it should be up at 75%. Our target has always been to do the most, I think, even before the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative was hatched in 2008, we were at 38%, so we already hit the clean energy goals that were set for 2030, I believe, at 40%. So we're already there. What's the makeup of your renewables, Will? I mean, is it PV or hydro? I know you had hydro. So the largest load used to be geothermal, right? That was 20% of the renewable generation. And I guess if I hit the PV is now at 80 plus megawatts with a 25% capacity factor. I think geothermal beats it, but the PV is almost, it may be the largest generator like today, but today is a rainy day, so no can today. But geothermal and PV are competing for the top spot in megawatt gigawatt hours produced per year. So how is hydro? Because when we went there, remember some years back? I do. The Wailuku River in the northeast. Yeah, and it went from the north of Hilo, yeah? Yeah. So not much then, there, or how is it? No, it does come up to about, I believe it's 12 megawatts, it's run of the river, so when the river runs rages, you get to tap into it. So it's not a firm hydro source, like most people are used to, it's an intermittent source. So it does comprise, I'm going to guess in the 5% area because it's about, it's 12 megawatts, but it's not used, you know, flat out, full capacity base load, so I'm going to hit it with a 50% capacity factor or not. I'll look at some charts while we're talking and I'll correct it if I'm wrong. Okay. Well, let's do a kind of periphery examination. So I'm just, I'm traveling, you know, south of Hilo, everything begins in Hilo, sorry. That's right. And so south of Hilo, you have, of course, Puna Geothermal Venture, which is, what did you say it was, 38 megawatts, maybe is it more now? Yeah, it's 30 and it's 30 or 32 and then there's a dispatchable 6 to 8 that goes up and down, load follows. So it's both base load and the load follow, but you can call it 38, you know, just for our purposes. Yeah, and it's often discussed in the context of environmental controversies, I guess it's really a cultural controversy. And we know that it, Puna Geothermal Ventures could generate a lot more than 38 or whatever it is, hundreds and for hundreds of years or more. And so there's a lid on it. Now is the lid a scientific lid or is it merely a cultural or political lid? It's actually a lot of different things. So I would start, as an engineer, I would start with the transmission constraint. I believe that if you need, if you wanted to put more geothermal on, you'd have to upgrade the transmission lines, which run to Helo Central and then back to Puna. So I think the transmission line is constrained at somewhere around that 38 megawatts. Maybe they can go up to 60, but I think there'd be transmission upgrades even going to the 60 they're permitted to do. So it's transmission constraint and then it has all the other social issues that you mentioned around it. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you announced, or if Puna Geothermal Ventures announced tomorrow that we're going to go to 60 and that there was going to be sufficient transmission lines, would there be resistance on that? Would there be resistance on, I guess, what amounts to any incremental increase? Well, they did try such a deal with the Helco RFP and Helco, to their credit, was looking for a lower price for its customers and no one could meet that bar. So it was to be cost effective geothermal that would lower the rates and no one could hit that bar. So the other thing to keep in mind is that that's the youngest part of the island. So you can call it zero years old and if they had put the geothermal wells where they first drilled the test wells, it would have been run over by lava by now. So it's, you know, you want to be, you want to have a diverse portfolio is what I say, you want to have geothermal, the hydro is actually 16 megawatts. So I do correct myself. So it's probably 8% of the renewable energy. So you want to have a diverse portfolio because we have the geothermal, we have the world-class wind on the south and north points. And now the county, you know, has a third-party power purchase agreement with a great developer at LaLamila Wind Farm at our largest deep as well. So, you know, and then we have the photovoltaics at 80 megawatts and then the promise of OTEC in the future at Natural Energy Lab. So we have a very diverse portfolio of both firm world-class, you know, wind that blows 60% of the time is the best in class on land. And then we have intermittent with photovoltaics and the intermittent hydro. One thing that comes out of this is if the transmission lines aren't sufficient for an increase at Puna, would they, would Helco have to build transmission lines to get, you know, beyond 54%. Is that in the cards? Is that in discussion? It sounds like if you want, you know, you want to go to 100% at some point, you have to do that with Puna or no Puna, you know? Right. So let's, if we moved, you know, let's say we develop other places like Pipikeo, which is the Hohenua biomass, still needs some transmission upgrades. Not as much, I wouldn't think as much as the magnitude of Puna geothermal, because that's such a long run from Puna to Helo. And Pipikeo is very close to Helo and there was already a power plant there. So I'm sure it's just some, some upgrade. And then if you increase the North Wind Farm and South Wind Farms, there's certainly transmission upgrades. And that's where you get into the, okay, what's the all in cost to do the next project? All of these projects require some transmission upgrades. So it's, you know, instead of talking about just generation, we talk about the whole package now, generation, transmission and distribution, and then which project makes the most cost-effective. Yeah, you didn't mention storage though, actually, Will. What about storage in that package? Isn't that part of the package? Well, it's funny because, you know, with geothermal, obviously it's already stored in the magma. So no need. Yeah, yeah. With, with world-class wind, you're operating at 60% capacity factor, very, very unlike California, which is at 30%. So you're already like working 60% of the time. So the need for storage goes away the higher your capacity factor. So called geothermal, a 99% capacity factor, the wind at 60% and, you know, the hydro at 50%. Now you get down to photovoltaics at 25%, then you look at storage, and then it makes more sense. So, yeah, there's a storage need, but fortunately on this island, there's so many renewable resources and a diverse portfolio that are almost firm, that the storage need isn't as great, right? Yeah. Well, when you said that wind is 60% efficient or capacity-efficient. You mean that you're averaging it over the 24-hour period. Day and night it's still generating power. So that really is tremendous. In fact, as you say, it's way better than solar at 25%. So wind is something to focus on, no? Yeah, we want County of Hawaii and Helco, Hawaii Electric Light, agree that more wind should be done on this island. We can look at our neighbor island Maui that has 70 megawatts of wind. We're at 33 megawatts of wind. We could double that, but obviously the last wind farms in would have to do a different type of PPA, power purchase agreement. So that would, you know, they'd be last in the protocol. And then there's a new power purchase agreement that's being talked about on the street called Renewable Dispatchable Generation. Not approved yet by the PUC, but a different way of letting intermittent projects come in and play on the grid. I have so many questions about the big island. By the way, I have to tell you, full disclosure, this is my favorite island. It's got so much diversity. I love that. But going back to South Point for a minute, years ago, in the early phases before 2008, there was a wind farm at South Point because it was a great location for wind. But the developer sort of abandoned it, am I right? And you have all these really, you know, ugly towers there doing nothing. So what happened since then? Somebody else came in and did another wind farm in the same location at South Point? Yeah, I believe they were bought out. I believe that was called Apollo Wind. And I believe it was bought out by the current company, which are father and son, Steve Pate, Pace and Rich Pace. And they're called Tahiri, spelled T-A-W-H-I-R-I. And they replaced the turbines with some GE 1.2 megawatt turbines, which I believe there's 15 of them. It comes up to 20 megawatts down there. Strikes me that the South Point area, like 12 miles south of the road at Waihino, is so far away from any town or main road. There's plenty of room on that big plateau there at South Point for more than 12, no? Oh, yeah, you could add quite, you could add, you know, maybe, I don't know how many megawatts, but certainly double the 20 that are there. And you're right, it's so far down. You know, we're lucky on the big island because when we look at our wind farms, they look like nice miniature dolls or miniature gingerbread houses. They don't really hurt the eye when you're driving on the road. Certainly, if you're living closer to them or if they're on a hill, you're going to notice them. But we're fortunate that we have locations that are far away from populations. Yeah, you mentioned the, I guess it's North Kohala you're talking about. As I recall, there was a wind farm just next to the Coast Guard station up there, which is no more. But that was a pretty good location, too. Is that the one you're talking about at Kohala? Well, I was just talking about the South Wind Farm that you were talking about. And the North Wind project is done by Havi, still in Havi. And it's been running for 15 years. Very successfully. No gear boxes have wiped out because the developer was really akamai about choosing the right gear boxes. And so those are the Vesta turbines. They're low profile, made in, I believe, Denmark. But we also have the Vestas at our Lalamilo water pumping site, which, by the way, is the most sophisticated water wind system in the United States and probably the world. Because it does not export any energy. It pumps, it cuts in on the right wind speed, and it checks the water levels in each tank. And it only pumps up to that water level and then cuts out. So it's a very sophisticated system. That is really, that's wonderful. What a great system. You know, so wonderful that we're going to take a one minute break to digest all that you've said. So, Will, we'll take one minute. We're going to see some public service announcements. We'll come back and talk to you some more about more renewables on The Big Eye, and we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Nothing is making sense. Hello, my name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at 3 o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. OK, we're back with my co-host, Sharon Moriwaki, co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum here on Think Tech, Hawaii the State of Clean Energy. We're talking about the Big Island. We're talking about what's on the horizon for Hawaii County in 2018 with the guy who knows Will Ralston's energy commissioner over there. And we've been doing a sort of peripheral look of everything going on in the Big Island. We have a map. This is going to be referred to as the famous Slide 16. We're going to take a look at this now. And it's been what we've been talking about. Ready? Puff, watch. There it is. Puff. Puff. There it is. It's going to come down a little bit. OK. Yeah, let's zoom back on it. Oh, nice slide. So we're showing 200 megawatts electric system, geothermal 38, South Wind Farm. We talked about that, 20 megawatts. North Wind Farm at Kohala, Hawaii, 11 megawatts. Lala Milo, where is that, in Hamakua? That's just up from Pulakau. It's right in the middle of the saddle. OK. OK. Right in between the two big mountains. OK, that'd be a good, it would be a slot where the wind would come out toward the ocean, I guess. Wait, so when we're looking at that map that we go from north to south, where are these projects, Will? So on the slide, obviously the geothermal is located in Puna, which is all the way to the right in the most eastern part of the island. And then if you go over west, you'll see South Point at the southernmost tip of the United States. And then going north from the South Point Wind Farm, the 20 megawatt, you'll get lots of solar plays, mostly residential, some commercial Costco, everyone visits there. They have their own first commercially financed PV system in the United States was the monolani, I have to say that. And then an OTEC project, couple OTEC projects, hopefully coming to Nelha, where they cut the teeth on OTEC offshore. Going north gets to the hobby wind site, but I did miss in between the saddle our Lala Milo wind project that was done with the water department and is the most sophisticated wind farm system in the United States. As you go over to Hilo, you get run of the river. If you can see on the map, there's lots of streams. You get run of the river hydro, especially when it rains like it has been the last two days. So we're probably getting lots of hydro right now. Sharon and I were there. We visited that. It's really an interesting plant. It is. It is. Yep. So you have photovoltaic of 80 megawatts that's mostly on the Kona side or what? A lot on the Kona side, as you can imagine, the resorts and the resort residences really love it. It was a good tax break for a lot of people. The commercial buildings like Target, the Kona Commons, Costco all have it on top. Most of those plays are just to cut a big chunk of their energy out. And they don't export to the grid. It's just they have maybe a megawatt load, and they're taking out 600 kilowatts of refrigeration from Costco because it's running all the time. So just smart photovoltaic plays in my opinion. Very controllable, in my opinion. I think that would be a little, it's now at 80 megawatts, which makes it the largest aggregated dispatchable generator on the system when the sun shines. So it eclipses Keahole point, which is 80 megawatt machine, and also Hamakua energy partners, which I believe is a 60 megawatt combined cycle machine on the east side, northeast side. Yeah, let's dwell for a minute on Nelha. We were there only about a month ago. And we saw Greg Barber and his staff there. We went around and saw their stuff. They have a very, what do you call it, nutritious program for entrepreneurs of all kinds, business plan, competition, that sort of thing. And they're trying to do energy. After all, that's their middle name, the Natural Energy Laboratory. You mentioned OTEC, and I remember OTEC had a ship out there with a red hull, 1979, trying to do OTEC. But since then, we still actually don't have OTEC. And I wonder, you mentioned it's coming soon, but what's the status? Are we going to see that as part of this diversified portfolio in Big Island? You will. A 100 kilowatt OTEC does exist at Nelha currently by Makai Ocean Engineering. And an RFP is on the streets, I believe, for two OTEC plays, one near the one megawatt range. Maybe net power would be 600 kilowatt and maybe a smaller one at 300 kilowatt. So Greg, and I'm on the Nelha board, Greg Barber, the executive director, is pushing to have more OTEC at the Natural Energy Lab, as he should. There's an investment of $100 million in pipes and that cold water, that's energy. So having that cold water, that's available energy. So it just makes sense to use it. And we're going to try to find the economic breakeven point on that. But we believe it's a good R&D play. And we believe that a lot of OTEC technologies, like air conditioning and other things, like harvesting metals from the ocean and things like that, will spawn from that, just like super colliders taught us a lot about lasers and things like that, quarks, and gigs, buffs, and particles, and things like that. Yeah. Well, this takes us, when you talk about economics, talk about various diversified sources, it takes us to the question of how much you guys are paying for a kilowatt hour. Where do you stand on that? What's your average cost to the consumer? And how do you rate against the other islands? I think we're second after Molokai. We're either second or third. Molokai may be the highest. And then Lanai's up there. And then we come in right after that. What is that, $0.30? Yeah, I think we're a little north of $0.30. And obviously, it depends on the oil price. So it depends on the energy cost that's pushed out from oil. A lot of these contracts with renewable energy, independent power producers are tied to avoided costs. So as the oil barrel goes up, then the renewable IPPs, which 50% of the generation is done by them, they also get paid more. So we are still tied to oil. Some of those contracts will run out soon, 2020 for the Javi Wimpharm. And I think 2025 for the South Wimpharm that's tied to oil. And I believe the hydro, I don't know when the hydro one runs out, but those are paid out as it is tied to oil called avoided cost contracts. You know, the Hohunua thing is kind of an interesting departure. And in fact, it was an article recently, I forget where I saw this last couple of days, about agriculture being the new source of energy, an important new source of energy in Hawaii. And so we had a long history in biomass. And this is promising for the future. So where does it fit in the future? Where does it fit in the pricing, in the cost to the consumer when you add biomass like Hohunua? Yeah, that's a great question. That is the debate currently, is the biomass power plant going to be cost effective for the repair? So the answer is it's going to increase rates. So I believe it's like $5 a month for the average family. So is it a good agriculture place? Now you've got to look at it from a helicopter view. Does it do more for the island than it takes in disposable income? So it may make sense from a total ag, we have jobs in agriculture. We're using the forest that are not usable for anything else. The eucalyptus stands that were planted in lieu of sugarcane. And to your point, yes, we were burning a lot of bagasse. In the early days, we basically had micro grids around the island, sugar plantations that were burning bagasse, the sugarcane biomass for fuel, for energy, sorry. So yeah, you could say it's a generational thing. This is the new and improved biomass play. Back to the plantation. And then you also have homeowners that live by the plant that say, wow, that seems a little bit odd that you're burning wood. So the debate is on. So talking about fuels. I mean, how are you doing on EVs? And I think there's talking about pilots with the hydrogen, with the National Parks at H&EI doing some projects over there. How is that going? What's the status there? Right, this has been a sojourn in hydrogen. So it's been a number of years, several years, in working to get the hydrogen buses and the hydrogen fueling station here. So the hydrogen fueling station is being built at Nelha, as you know, and I think it will be complete. It may already be complete now, but we're looking at 2018 to get one county bus and Volcanoes National Park to get two hydrogen buses. So three hydrogen buses total on island. And then I've been talking to my directors about getting a hydrogen vehicle for our fleet just because the name of our department is research and development. And that's what we do. We did start with the first generation of Chevrolet bolts, which are the plug-in hybrid that has the internal combustion engine, the battery pack, and the regenerative brakes. And that's proven after several years, at 70,000 to 80,000 miles on the odometer of those vehicles, it's proven to be the right choice. We bought it at about 45,000, which most people thought that's high for our car. But I knew that $90,000 of technology was in there. And again, we are research and development. So if we make a decision that this is a technology that fits, and we obviously want to be right most of the time and not make mistakes. So in that, it took us two years to pay that electric vehicle off because we had it wrapped into the PV system. So the PV system, we got from a third party with a power purchase agreement. That's $0.20 electricity. So it's equivalent to about $2 a gallon gas for the electric vehicle. So it worked out and paid for itself in two years. So Big Island is so big. How do you, where are these charging stations? Does everybody have range anxiety every day if they go from here to there? Karen knows what she's talking about. She has range anxiety. She has experienced what range anxiety is all about. And you can't find something. And you've got like seven miles left of your car. Yeah, exactly. I have Skype anxiety. So basically, we made the decision when Chargers came out, and Better Place was the leading entity that brought them out. But we made a decision, OK, County is not going to invest in public Chargers because we don't know what the right technology is yet. So we wanted to wait and see. And we knew that Maui was getting a $30 to $45 million grant with, I believe it was, the Japanese government and Hitachi. Hitachi, Hitachi, yes. So we wanted to watch and see which Chargers were the robust ones that still hung around. So Better Place failed, as you know. And then the next tranche was a little iffy. And then we watched Maui do well. But we thought that, OK, those are the Chathamos. Those are Japanese specific. We wanted a more general use Charger. And then we didn't know if County should lead in putting up Chargers or some entity, whether it was a car company like Nissan or Chevrolet wanted to lead that. And we also didn't want to put up Chargers that were not functioning, which a lot of them didn't for years. And people would go and try to get a Charger. And it didn't work. And there's a huge liability with people obviously could get electrocuted. So long story short, we waited. And now we're at the point where we're ready to put in a lot of Chargers. We've put them in on the Hilo side at our county building, two county buildings. We've put them on this facility, six Chargers. We have a fleet of five, six, and some personal people have electric vehicles. But it's been enough for our needs. But the public needs more. And some fast Chargers were just put in by Hawaii Electric Light. And so they're taking the charge, so to speak, with electric Chargers. And that to me and us seems natural because it is revenue, right? It's a good revenue stream for the utility. And so it makes sense. So what's the thing looking to 2018, the name of our show? We only have a minute left here. What's the thing that? What's on the horizon for Big Island? Yeah, that's on the horizon for you. What do you get excited about for 2018? The one thing that comes to mind. If you go to the next slide, Slide 17, it kind of shows you where we've been and where we're going. Yeah, poof, watch this. Poof. 517, ah, there it is, OK. OK, so you see where we come from just starting with our green government program and then start stepping lightly into LED lamps. Now we've done a total retrofit of all the island's lamps, first county to do it, first island to do it. And then we've been given an asteroid. An asteroid was named after our Department of Public Works traffic chief because he darkened the night sky. I hope you had a party about that. Very happy about that. We've also done, as you know, Lalamilu, that sophisticated wind farm. We won a national climate change award at the last mayor's conference. So then we're stepping into an EV charger network for our county facilities. We're looking at microgrids for certain critical facilities like our civil defense area. And then we're heavy in the PUC dockets, as you know. We go in those dockets knowing it's going to be a lot of work. We sometimes hire consultants that are experts. And we play very, we play hard in those dockets because we know they're important policies first. The way we approach everything, it's actually slide two if you want to look at that. That's our approach is energy policy first then energy efficiency second, on-site renewables, transportation projects, utility partnerships. We can't say enough good things about a Hawaii electric light especially in civil defense situations. They're amazing. Energy research and development, like we support the heck out of natural energy lab when we can. And then education and economic development all the way through those steps. And that's kind of our mantra. But where we're going to answer your question, I have to bring you back to slide 17, the strategic initiatives launched US and world leaders in renewable energy, 50% trajectory to 100% and we think we'll be there first before any island in Hawaii. So we're proud of that. We've done our homework. We started before the clean energy initiative. We didn't need anyone to tell us how to do that. We just did it. And then we wanted to storage like you mentioned but it may be hydrogen, it may be pump storage and it may be batteries. We don't know yet. And then we're gonna get the hydrogen buses. I think that's gonna be really cool for people to ride around and experiment with that technology. And if it's your favorite island then maybe it gets more favorite when you're experiencing these different cool things like OTEC and hydrogen bus. Well, if you'll have us we'd like to come over and make a movie about all of these things. Well, we'll come over and with a camera and sort of do it. That'd be great. Yeah, because Sharon and I did that five years ago. We had a wonderful time, yeah. Okay, well, we're out of time you guys. Let me say, Will, you're really easy to talk to when you're a really good interview. Certainly appreciate all the information. Have a better idea about what's going on in the big island, why it's so important. Sharon, why don't you close? Okay, the good things about Hawaii is Hawaii Island and doing all that you're doing, Will, from PV and hydro and geothermal and looking at it in a really planned way. So our energy briefing this year is long range planning and you're doing exactly what we hope all the other counties and the state does is strategically planned forward. So thank you very much. And I wanna keep in touch with your new developments in 2018. Thank you, Will. Will Rosting, Energy Commissioner in the big island, Merry Christmas to you, sir. Yes, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Melikli, Kimaka. We'll see you at the briefing on the January 10th. Come by. I'll be there. I already promised. Okay, great. Aloha. Thank you, Will.