 role of HNEI in Hawaii's clean energy future here on ThinkTech. I'm Jay Fiedel. It's the 12 o'clock clock on Monday. And our special guest is Rick Roscholo, the director of HNEI, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at UH. And my co-host and contributor, Marco Olo Mangelstorf. There you are, Marco. Marco, can you take the moment and introduce Rick, please? Oh, I certainly can. First of all, thank you so much, Jay, for the duo being reunited here on this Monday. And it's my great pleasure to welcome Rick Roscholo to our show today. Rick brings such a wealth of knowledge. He's been head of Hawaii Natural Energy Institute for more than 20 years. And I'm so pleased, Rick, to have you on. Thank you so much. And my question to you, and this is a question I'd like to ask a lot of our guests is, if the Rick Roscholo of 2021 could speak to the Rick Roscholo 20 years ago, and you're just getting your feet wet at HNEI, what pearls of wisdom, what pearls of wisdom would the Rick of today tell the Rick of 20 years ago? Wow, that's a tough question. 20 years ago is even that long ago. You know, I guess 20 years ago was about when HNEI really started to get involved in the integration of renewables on the grid, as opposed to just looking at technology development. And I guess I would have told myself to really keep an open mind about how much we can do and how much the systems are going to evolve and don't be surprised at the progress that's going to be made, even some that look, I think fairly daunting and fairly difficult, you know, a lot less than 20 years ago, to be honest. And to kind of rip off of that just for a moment, I mean, I too, I moved to Hawaii in 2020, 2000, to be a funding team member provision. I've been connected to Hawaii since my grandparents moved to Manoa in the 1920s. And back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, I would not have imagined the degree to which distributed energy resources, aka solar PV, and now for solar plus storage, is becoming so widespread. I mean, of course, I'd always hope that it would be, but the degree to which the grids are island grids can handle more and more and more renewable energy has been truly astonishing to me. And it's taken an all hands on deck approach. And you've been a part of that. You've been on that deck. I've been a little person and on the deck as well. And Hawaiian Electric and the public utilities commission and so many others. So yeah, it's been truly astonishing how far we've come the next past 20 years. So maybe we have 20 more years and then some of a fantastic progress. Rick, what does HNEI do? I mean, it does research. It has scientists. It invents products, refines products. It looks at all possibilities for renewable energy. But in your word for it, in your concept of it going forward, what does it do? We have really three buckets of activities, I'll call them. Things that I grouped together in kind of similar levels of activities. And probably about half our funding and probably more than half of our people are involved in what you expect the university to be involved in your research development, developing new materials, new processes, new methodologies for doing things. Some of it's in the lab. Some of it is done at grid scale, but it's more of a demonstration or a validation of the way systems work. Some of our early battery work fell in that category where we deployed batteries and really learned how to use them on the HECO grid, our hydrogen fueling station on the big island falls in that category. So that's about half of what we do. And it's kind of going from what university groups typically do to a little bit more practical and out on the grid. Over the last maybe five to six years, we've really opened up significant doors throughout Southeast Asia. We're now active in a number of countries and regions. We have projects in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, to name a few, probably quite a few more. And that's opened up new funding opportunities with groups like USAID and most recently with World Bank that has expanded. And really, we're using that opportunity to take what we've learned in Hawaii and exported and actually teach people there how to do it. We actually have a group. I'm not sure exactly how many it is. It's more than a half dozen, maybe close to a dozen of engineers from the Provincial Energy Authority in Thailand in town this week getting training on how to implement renewables into their grid system. And that's one of the ongoing activities. That's rough numbers, maybe 30% of activity. And about 20% is really focused on directly supporting Hawaii and the organizations in Hawaii, the PUC, working closely with utility, working with state energy office, really trying to do both projects. And in a lot of cases, analysis to look at how do we integrate more renewables into the grid? How do we maintain grid reliability? How do we best use our assets going forward to try to get as close as we can to our 100% goal? Dar, you're really central in clean energy, in the development of clean energy in the state and furthermore in exporting the science, the organizational aspects of clean energy to other countries. I didn't realize how much. But one of the things you said, and that is your leadership in the community, evokes the question about the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, which has been for the past 15 years or so, associated with the School of Social Sciences at UH. And you're a UH entity, and you have taken that over. And now you're going to be managing Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. This is a really important development, should be of interest to everybody in energy in the state of Hawaii. Can you talk about it? You know, I can talk about it in it, you know, due to personnel changes and organizational changes, the Policy Forum was kind of in need of a new home. H&EI has been involved since its inception. I was involved rather closely in the very early days, and then other people at H&EI kind of picked up that role. You know, and when we looked at it, it was an opportunity to try to integrate and get more involved with the broader sector of the community. We work, like I said, with the PUC and utility. And with a lot of other organizations as well. But the Policy Forum gives a chance to really broaden that interaction and bring in those other inputs that I think are going to be needed from other people. I would put it in the developmental stage right now. We're having discussions with parties that are members of the forum, certainly with some of the legislators to see what their needs are and really trying to figure out how that forum can best serve the community and the state legislature and other groups in the state. So I don't think I would affirm it as we have a definitive plan yet, but we are committed to making it work. Thankfully, due to the barrel tax that was put in place, and the fact that we get some of that barrel tax, we can support those activities. So hopefully in the next few months, that path will get much better defined and we'll see the progress starting to take shape. As I said, you know, you are in the center of things, and the Energy Policy Forum has been, over the years, a gathering place for the energy community. And now I think under your leadership, it will be that again. Then I guess the question I put to you is, how important is it that the energy community get together and collaborate? It hasn't done that, at least in my view, to the extent it could have. You are a great successor leader for the Energy Policy Forum. And I guess how important is it that they talk to each other, they compare notes about it. They work together in advising government of the projects that are most important. You've been doing that, but suppose we look forward and see the entire community doing that, doesn't that help? Well, I guess in some ways, I think it's more important than ever. In the very early days, as you're aware, you were around Jay doing it. The Policy Forum is really trying to guide some early policy on how we move to renewables, and some things proposed have happened, and some haven't as typically happened. The technology developed, you know, cost stains and things went down, pathways that made business sense for the state and for various organizations. I think now we're at a point where technologically, we have passed forward to very high levels of integration of renewables that probably, I know, you know, I wouldn't have to go back 20 years. If I go back 10 years, maybe even five years, I didn't think we're achievable without some much more radical changes in technology. I think we're looking at, you know, 60, 70, 80 percent numbers, the goals 100. Certainly, as you get to that very last bit, it gets more difficult. But all of these technological solutions are going to require much more community acceptance, knowledge of what's going on, input to what's going on early on. So I think the role for the Policy Forum to help pave that path, what we now know is technically achievable, is probably more important than ever. And that includes not just the community, but all of the various energy parties that have always belonged to the forum to get that message out. Yeah, very important. You know, one of the things that's in play, which HNEI knows a lot about, is clean transportation. I know you did, you have done, you are doing research on hydrogen and fuel cells. And this morning, Hawaiian Electric announced they were going to put in, I guess, nearly $100 million on charging stations. They've done certain charging station work before, but not at this level. And now it looks pretty serious that we're moving in that direction. Manufacturers, the technology and so forth. And, you know, in fact, at the moment, there are only 16,000 electric vehicles in the state, where we have, gee whiz, something close to a million, you know, fossil fuel vehicles in the state. So how important is all of this with the clean transportation to, you know, the general initiative? So I have a take on this that sometimes is a bit controversial. And, you know, and I'm not the only one, there have been a number of national papers that have addressed this. Hawaii has a very unique energy situation in that, you know, we're slowly or maybe quickly putting more renewables on our grid. But what we're not using renewables, we're largely using oil. So unlike the mainland US, where if you put in electric vehicles and you stop using gasoline and oil, you have other potentially lower carbon substitutes, maybe hydroelectric, maybe nuclear, if you want to include it, natural gas, depending on your view of natural gas, you get an almost immediate transition into that reduced carbon. In Hawaii, because we are displacing oil with potentially another oil source, the getting to the electrification of transportation is very important. But it's important we don't take our eye off of getting the renewables on to the grid. To the point where the grid really can't take anymore, and we need that electrification, we need to expand our load and be utilizing renewables to do it, not just substituting one oil load for another oil load. So I think it's really important we build that infrastructure, we start that process, it's going to be long term, I think there's going to be some hiccups and difficulties in getting the community to move along that. But I really want to be sure we don't take our eye off the ball that we need the renewables to go well beyond where we are today, and maybe even beyond these technologically achievable numbers I'm talking about in order to get the full value of the electric vehicle. Then there's the portfolio in general, back in the day when Hawaii Energy Policy Forum was organized, the mantra was we need to have a diversified portfolio. We need to have everything. There's nothing we won't consider. Wave energy, wind, course solar, our geothermal, I'm going to just do it with three others, I'm sure will come to mine. And that seems to have changed. See if you agree with me that we're focusing, and Mark I'm sure has some questions for you on this. We're focusing now more on solar than anything else. We are not particularly interested in wind, new wind installations. We've had NIMBY problems with that. And although there is an initiative to build wind offshore, that seems unlikely. Geothermal has a kind of last ceiling, and more and more you look and it seems like everything is focused on solar and now batteries. Am I right? You were right to an extent. I mean, I think the neighbor islands with the geothermal is clearly a better resource on the big island. It's been difficult to explore it for Maui due to probably community and other regulatory issues or potential there, but it's not been fully explored and really taken seriously there, I don't think. It's a less available resource on Oahu. The bottom line is, in order to achieve our goal, Oahu is about 70% of our energy demand. We are more land constrained. We do have a greater population, so developments impact those populations and communities more. So solar, because of the significant reduction in both the cost of solar and batteries and the improved performance of both, have provided a near-term opportunity to greatly increase our renewable generation on this island. That said, it won't take us the entire way. It's going to get more, first of all, it's going to get more difficult to put that solar on. We're going to start to get into regions where we may not have the redundancy of transmission lines, community acceptance might get more difficult. And technically, you do start to need that diversity of resources you come back to. We haven't clearly defined those limits. So I view the solar and battery as between the technical changes, the cost changes, the tax structure. This has been an opportunity that Hawaii was very smart to take advantage of and to push as far as we can, but we really do now need to get serious about what are we going to be able to do beyond just solar and storage. It's not to say we're at the end of that. I mean, I think the stage one and stage two projects that are referred to adds another 400 or so megawatts of solar and that's the AC component. There's room for another significant tranche beyond that. There's room for additional rooftop solar, but that still doesn't take us all the way. And at that point, I think we're going to need to seriously be looking again at what are these alternative technologies we can bring to bear to meet our goals and increase our renewable penetration. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Marco, you have some questions at this point? Of course, always. So it's a great segue to focus more specifically on Oahu. A quick question, Rick. Is my understanding, and I'd like to confirm or not this understanding, is my understanding that come hell or high water, the AES coal plant, at Barbara's point on Oahu, will 100% 1,000% a million percent be shut down, will no longer burn coal as of sometime September of next year. Under no circumstances will that power plant continue burning coal beyond sometime in September. Is that your understanding as well? That is my understanding. I have no information to contradict or indicate that extending it beyond that time period would even be possible at this point in time. Okay, so as you pointed out rightly so, Oahu is much more land constrained than the neighbor island, especially the big island where we have so much land, right? And the possible conversion of AES to an alternate fuel source other than coal such as biomass is something that is kind of a hot topic these days, as you know well. You provided information to a number of senators that are hearing of on my mistake in back September. You are kind enough to share that slide deck with me, which I really appreciate. And my understanding is this, Rick, is Hawaiian Electric in the form of the top executives, senior VP Colton Shane, President Scott Sue, have said publicly and explicitly, Hawaiian Electric does not need the firm generation that would be produced by a biomass burning AES power plant. They've made that clear. They've made that explicit. And yet you have a number of senators, Senator Donovan Delacruz, Senator Glenn McKay, amongst others, who seem to have taken a very keen interest in that possible conversion and you provided your analysis from your position there in HNEI. So my question to you is, do you have a view as to whether or what is the desire, what is the motivation behind pursuing a possible expensive conversion with a lot of unknowns to another power, a generation source biomass when Hawaiian Electric itself has been on the record saying, we don't need it. We can meet the demands that we foresee, that we forecast from other generation means. Why this energy, why this apparent enthusiasm on the part of a number of individuals and groups toward converting AES from coal to biomass? Can you help and better understand kind of what's going on? Yeah, there are probably a number of things at play here. And I want to be a little careful about the Hawaiian Electric statement. And again, it might be great to have one of them come on and have that discussion because there have been scenarios run as part of the integrated grid planning. And it depends what costs get thrown in where Hawaiian Electric has proposed to build out of new biomass energy type plant in the late 2020s or early 2030 timeframe. That initial discussion took place when the discussion was really around a proposal to keep that plant operating for purposes of helping meet reliability due to the potential delay and some of the solar plus battery projects were expected to replace it. But again, I'm not sure in making that statement, there's not a little bit of mixing of what intense and statements were. So I think that one's worth re-exploring exactly where he comes down on that one. But as a result of that meeting, there were a couple of statements made. One was, we don't need that resource. And the reality is there's a lot of solar plus battery to be built out. We can meet or exceed our 2030 RPS goals with the plans that are in place without that plant. But it is a resource that is there. And if retired and just retired and disassembled, it will obviously have to be rebuilt from scratch. And based on information from AES, there was a potential to do something with it substantially cheaper than starting all over again. The second statement that was made at that meeting that was really focused on reliability was that, no, we don't want biomass because it's relatively expensive, which it is relative to our current solar prices. We want to pursue solar. So the effort that we undertook was really to look at what was the potential if we converted that plant to biomass to put that onto the grid without negatively impacting the ability to continue to integrate solar plus batteries, which does appear to be a lower cost option at this time. And so our purpose was kind of predicated just to get the information out there and make sure we debated this to its fullest extent. There were a couple of significant findings in that study, and I can go over those. And there are also some significant things that we did not address in that study in detail, specifically concerning some of the greenhouse gas issues that I'm sure will be controversial. And that, as you probably know, Marco is a highly debated topic when it comes to the use of biomass. So our purpose was not necessarily to say the AES plant was needed, but to try to put out information to show what its potential might be. And I can summarize real quickly what we found. What we found was that stage one and stage two solar could go in. An additional crunch of solar equivalent to stage one and stage two plus a significant amount of rooftop distributed solar could be installed on a Wahoo. And the biomass plant continued to operate or the whole plant be converted to the biomass and operated near capacity without any negative impact on that solar development. And what that showed up as when we ran the model, so it would be no need to curtail any of that solar as a result of the biomass plant being operational. So the point we wanted to make there was if that plan is converted, it doesn't negate the ability to continue down the path we currently are to continue to install solar and battery or any other low source variable, dispatchable variable option that may be available. We looked at costs in a very preliminary way and basically compared it to oil. So what that plant ends up being, obviously you're generating a lot more energy if you have it operating than if you don't. It turns out you can turn down and possibly retire, but for now just consider turning down some of your fossil fuel plants. So it ends up being a direct replacement for oil that we are currently burning. So we get an immediate jump in our RPS for our renewable generation percentage. We don't negatively impact our ability to install dispatchable variable technologies like solar. And so then the question becomes can we do it cost effectively and can we do it maybe not 100% carbon free, but can we do it with a smaller footprint in continuing to burn fossil fuels for the time that plant would be operational? I think the answer to both is we are very close economically and that then requires other parties to get involved. What would the structure of the deal look like? What exactly can they yes offer? What would be the details of retrofitting that plant? At that point the party is involved and that will ultimately do the request and negotiations need to get involved. And in terms of greenhouse gases, there are papers out there that say we can't burn biomass from trees to make fuel. It is going to be worse than burning fossil fuels. There are a number of other studies including groups like the IEA, some with the National Labs involved to say if you look at the entire forestry management of large systems and consider it, it can be done with a significant reduction in greenhouse gas relative to burning fossil fuels. That's something that needs to be looked at explicitly based on what the plans of AES would be. And that's a lot of information, but feel free to follow up with the question. Thank you so much, Rick. That was very, very informative. And I learned this question for Jay. Okay, I'm going to take full responsibility for asking, but I learned it from Jay. And I'm going to advisedly put you on the spot here. Okay. If you were energy czar, if I gave you the benediction of energy czar here, energy czar them in the state of Hawaii, and it was your call, Rick, whether to pursue, based on what you know today, whether to pursue the conversion of the AES coal plant to biomass, is this something that Rick Rochello as energies are would choose to do? Okay. First, I can say I'm a university person, so nothing I say carries any weight of decision making. I think based on the potential to reduce our fossil footprint, and if due diligence is done to ensure that the biomass source does result in a net greenhouse gas reduction, I think it would be a wise investment. And I'm saying that because, and again, part of it is based on AES information that they say can be shared that they estimate that the cost of retrofitting that plant to use biomass would be about 20% the cost of building a new plant. And based on that, I think this is a resource we need to consider very, very carefully before we let it fully retire, be disassembled, and then have to rebuild. I think the debate is really now starting to be addressed. I know it's being asked by the legislature. I know on some of the stakeholder meetings of the integrated grid planning group, people are starting to ask a question, how much firm power are we going to need? That doesn't mean you need base load power. It means you need truly dispatchable, available whenever you want it power to fill in certain gaps. I think the AES plant may, we need to define exactly what that role is, but for the next 10 years or so, I think there's a gap where that AES plant can operate as nearly a base load plant and displace oil. What about Hu Honua? Does that run a parallel? Does that fold into the kind of analysis you're making? They're about done. Some people say they already have a preliminary staff out there working on things. And I wonder where that fits in this analysis. I should have known that question might be coming. I think Hu Honua, the analysis we've done for Hu Honua does not apply directly to Hu Honua because the Big Island has a much wider selection of potential resources. On a Hu Honua right now, fairly over the next five years, I think beyond that, I think offshore wind, we need to keep that door open. I agree it's going to be difficult. Other than that, the solar plus battery is also going to get a bit more difficult as we get to the limits of our transmission line. We do not have a lot of other easy options over the next decade. I think the biomass one, from that perspective, makes sense on a Hu Honua. That argument is not directly transferable. There may be other benefits on the Big Island, but that option, if I do that, I don't replace some other option is not as clear on the Big Island as it is on a Hu Honua. One other thing before Marco does a summary here, we're getting close to the end. That is going forward. We have, at least theoretically, until, well, wind electric once said 2040, but the standard number is 2045. That's our target date. Yet a lot of people have said and continue to say that there is no definitive plan for how, you know, what initiatives we implement, when we implement them, charting it out, programming it out from here to there. There are a lot of organizations and agencies who have a finger in energy in this state. It's kaleidoscopic in the sense that they change in terms of the amount of influence they have in a given moment. But how do you think the organizational, how do you think this is going to be organized? Who is going to come up with a plan? What collaboration is going to be appropriate for it? When will it be designed and maybe even what do you think it'll say? I guess I have a different view of that plan. I think it's very difficult. I mean, if you look at what Marco and I talked about early on, five years ago, 10 years ago, we would have never expected. I mean, people talked about you might get to 20, 25%, but then it'd be very difficult to integrate solar battery technology, really change that. We don't know what's going to be around in five years, 10 years, 15 years, what the real technological improvements are going to be. I think what we need to do is to make decisions now that don't explore as many options as we can. I think we need multiple plans, you know, if this then that, if this then something else, and keep as many doors open as we can. You know, and that may imply the way you do the PPA agreements. It may modify the way the utility looks at the way they operate their systems. I don't think we know what that path forward is. And I think any path forward is probably based on costs and numbers that are going to change significantly as these technologies improve. So, you know, how the guy used to work for me constantly referred to the no regrets options. I think we need to do the things we can do that won't make us regret that we close the door for the future and keep as many of those doors open and know what those options and possibilities are and implement them when they make sense. Okay. We're almost out of time, Marco. It's time for you to ask Rick one of your 50,000 questions and and then summarize. Thank you. Thank you for giving me one more shot here because I wanted to, there's one more burning question I have for you. So, there have been concerns that have been expressed by both Dave Griffin and Jenny Potter on the PUC. They're concerns about what the reserve margin is going to be on Oahu post AES coal shutting down. And on the other end of that spectrum, you have Hawaiian Electric that has said publicly, we got this covered. There's going to be adequate reserve margin, even in the case of AES going offline, even in the case of AES, the Kapolei Energy Storage System not coming online by the end of the year, even in the case of this 50 megawatts of behind the meter generation, which is going on or in progress on Oahu, even the case of none of those really come on and provide generation. Where do you fall? I know you're not a utility guy. You're not, you're not privy to everything the utility has, but in terms of the, we're really concerned versus we got this covered. Where does one Rick Roscholo fall on that spectrum? Yeah. And I want to, I meant to do it earlier on, so I'm not trying to shift the blame for what I say here. But, you know, we were very closely with a couple of guys who came out of GE Energy, Telos Energy, who have developed some, I think, some really, really great models to look at this reliability issue. And we've been working with them very closely on both developing and utilizing nodes. You know, basically the utility is going to modify their maintenance schedule. The reliability at the current time doesn't depend so much on whether or solar or any of those issues. It depends on what's the likelihood of multiple outages of existing unit and do you have enough surplus capacity in place? A big part of what units are offline at any instant in time are units that are planned well in advance. These are the big maintenance issues. You know, they're off for a month, two months, they're doing generated rebuilds, they're doing big things. The utility is modifying that schedule so that during what turns out to be our critical month, September, October, and maybe dragging into November, a significant amount of generation that normally would have been offline will remain online. That will replace the majority of the loss of capacity that will result from AES being retired. If we can get anything else on the grid, you know, 10 megawatts of solar or a little bit more distributed, some of the emergency demand respond, you know, the models show that, you know, if we could get about 40 megawatts or so of any of that all combined, we would have a reliability in our system about where it is today. If we don't have that, we would be at somewhat increased risk for a short period of time, but that takes us from basically, you know, it takes us from the likelihood of an outage, you know, one out of 10 times to one out of seven times. We kept repeating that September. So, and I think there's other things that the utility can probably do to mitigate demand during that period of time. So, it's important we get the solar plus battery on. I do think, you know, with the utility keeping a close eye on it and the continued push to get as much on as we can, we will get through this September issue. I won't call it a crisis, but issue favorably. But that considered, would you advocate for that bill that's been languishing in the legislature to allow a tax credit on solar being added to existing, I'm sorry, storage or added to existing solar? You know, I haven't, I have not looked at that closely. That can provide value to the grid, demand response, batteries, if they are managed so that some of that use of battery provide, you know, absorb energy in the day and provides it in the evening and provide service to the grid. So, that does provide value to the grid. Short term, that would be extreme value. I don't know if people fully evaluated the long-term value yet. It could be a good thing to do, but it would certainly help in the near term to mitigate these issues. Thank you. Marco, can you summarize and say thanks and farewell to Rick? Well, summarize, gee, you know, I just think we, so we had a fantastic time. At least I did, I hope you guys did too. I learned a lot, and that's what, like the hokey pokey, that is what it's all about in life. So, thank you so much, Rick. It was real pleasure. I hope we can get you back on before too long, because you're a wealth of information, you're a great guy, you have lost the share and you're, you know, you're in the trenches there. So, I'm all for talking to people in trenches. So, mahalo nui for joining us today, and thank you, Jay, for doing whatever, whatever the fantastic Fidel does day in, day out, year in, year out. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rick. Thanks for coming around. We hope to see you again. There's so much more to discuss. And as things change, there will be even more. Thank you for the opportunity. And just one last time, I'd just like to credit all the people working behind me to allow me to be the spokesperson for some of this information, as you know. Thank you. Rick Rochello, the director of the Hawaiian Natural Energy Institute at HNEI at UH Aloha.