 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Bingo, bingo. This is Think Tech, of course. This is Hawaii's state of clean energy every Wednesday at 4 p.m. here on Think Tech. It's wonderful to do this. And we like to cover energy, and so we are at the heart of energy today. The heart, the very heart. Okay, we're at D-Bed, and the H-S-E-O. That's the Hawaii State Energy Office. Write that down. It's gonna be a final exam, okay? Now we have two of the principals in the energy group there. One is Veronica Rocha, and one is Alan Okimoto. Veronica is the renewables person. Well, you know. That's right. Welcome to the show, Veronica. Thank you, Jay. Appreciate it. Yeah, you've been here as well as before, so we know you. Okay, Alan Okimoto, he does energy efficiency. He's the acting branch chief of the energy efficiency part of H-S-E-O at D-Bed. Wow. Thanks for having us, Jay. Well, glad you're here. So I want to examine this because we always talk about, you know, this landscape of people associated. Stakeholders may not be the right word, but the people associated with development of energy in our state. You know, and it is the most important initiative we have going. I know there are other things we talk about, but energy is the one that takes us into the future and makes us resilient going forward and keeps our economy going even in the face of increasing oil. And by the way, oil is increasing. And did you notice that? 57 now, maybe a little more today. It's a little scary. We knew this was going to happen, yeah? And so now we have to focus, we have to make sure we focus on renewables and efficiency. So you guys are at the center of it. And so we have, let me just throw some structures out there. We have the governor, definitely. We have the legislature. We have two energy chairs there in the legislature. We have the energy policy forum. You guys know that. We have the utility. You have two utilities, actually. We have Hawaiian Electric. We have a KIUC. What else do we have? I'm sure I'm missing a lot of things here. We have HNEI, it does research at the university. Your friend Mark Lick is over there, yeah? Yeah. Formerly the Hawaii State Energy Office administrator, yeah? Who else is in the landscape? Of course, the Hawaii State Energy Office. Of course, in Tibet, yeah. The Public Utilities Commission. Public Utilities, definitely. Consumer Advocacy. Consumer Advocacy. I knew you'd help me with this. Yes. But then there's also a ton of other really important people. We have the cause groups, the public interest groups. There's a lot of them. They have a lot to say about energy. And we have the industry in general, which has trade associations. They have a lot to say about energy. So when you add them all up, how many did I just name? Maybe a dozen? I mean, Veronica and me together, a dozen. There's a lot of people. So the question is, where does HSEO fit? Because you can't do a complex initiative without somebody saying, follow me, boys and girls. Where does HSEO fit in all of that landscape? Yeah, well, I'm happy to get started on that. Sure, Veronica. So what's unique about the Hawaii State Energy Office is that we are not regulators. We do have statutory authority. And to, I guess, paint a fuller picture, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, the director, sits on the cabinet of the governor's office. There's no energy person on the cabinet, is there? I'm sorry? There's no energy person on the cabinet. He is actually the energy resources coordinator. You think there should be an energy authority? That's not for me to decide. But he is the energy resources coordinator. And he has delegated authority to do all the coordination, planning, programs, associations. But he actually delegates that to the HSEO, doesn't he? He does, right? And so we have a new energy administrator who, unfortunately, could not be here today. That's Carolyn Sean, isn't it? Yes. And she is very familiar with Jim Sean, isn't she? Apparently so, yes. And I've never met her husband. But I do understand he is. He has been a host here. Ah, very good. Education, that's his thing. Yes, that's my understanding as well. So back to the Hawaii State Energy Office. So I was mentioning we're not a regulator. But according to the laws and this more focused also direction that Carolyn is taking us to, we are policy advisors to the governor, to the legislature, to other state agencies on matters pertaining to energy. You're a staff. You're not a regulator. We're not a regulator, advisor. And you don't have the role of commanding people to do things. So you're actually on the governor's staff. You're in the executive branch. That's right. And you're on the governor's staff. That's right. And so you would make reports and advice to the governor about what he should do. Right. And you mentioned reports, so providing technical assistance and guidance on everything pertaining to energy. Planning, the other branch manager. There's actually four branch managers. Two of us are here. OK, would you name them? Yes, of course, Chris Younger. He manages the energy systems and planning groups. So planning is also a big directive of what the Energy Resources Coordinator Authority is responsible for. And the transportation is in there somewhere. And transportation is also part of Chris's group. Now we also have a fourth group that is being led by Marisa Sakuta. That's the Clean Energy and Systems Group. And that group was more focused on a colored clean energy systems, like innovations. And they've done quite a bit of work with Chris's group on things like visualization. What's visualization? So I can talk briefly about it. Basically, one of the projects that they're working on is gathering ecosystem energy data and making it accessible and visual in 3D so that it can be displayed in ways that are more understandable to the general public. It's the analytics. It's the analytics. It's data keeping, data interpretation. That's right. Reporting on what's happening. That's right. So that's going to be more of a focus of that group moving forward. So that's actually, I think, very much needed in the States. I'm really excited to have more of that capability within our office. Yeah. But you two guys are at the front end of things. Because, in my opinion, anyway, because renewables, it's everything really. That's what we've been thinking about and dwelling in for the last 10 or 15 years anyway. And efficiency is, I mean, everybody is involved in efficiency. It has tremendous outreach to the state. It changes lives, actually, even more, even, may I say, even more than renewables do. No, really. And I think that's something that perhaps not everybody gives enough credit to energy efficiency. I always tell people, before you want to implement any renewable energy action, make sure that you try to squeeze out as much energy efficiency out of a building or the way that people go about using energy. And then go ahead and implement renewable energy. What I get from that, and I believe this, is that before you get to renewables, you first, you have to skinny down your needs. And so, efficiency comes before renewables. Yeah, so that's one thing we've always been doing like Veronica said, Jay, that we like to say energy efficiency first. So you look at becoming more energy efficient with your home, your property. And then after you do that, then you can look at renewable. Because the downside, if you don't do that, you may end up having a larger system than you really need. And so that's what we always recommend to our constituency to do that first. So where I want to get is the line between the planning part, advising the governor part, and the action part. Because we've had so many people on this show who actively go out there and try to make the state more efficient in energy. And as you know, we've had so many people out there trying to do renewables, make renewables happen all over the state. So when we talk about energy efficiency from the HSEO point of view, are you in the same game as, for example, Hawaii Energy? Are you going to be trying to convince people to do it? Are you going to be trying to give them incentives and go out to their houses? They got all these programs that go outreach everywhere, and are you doing the same thing or something different? I think, yeah, we're doing something different. We work in collaboration with Hawaii Energy, but we don't want to duplicate what Hawaii Energy is doing. So for us, we're concentrating our efforts on state facilities through various financing mechanisms. The one that's been very successful is energy performance contracting. We are now number one in the nation for per capita investment in performance contract. We've won... What is the performance contract? Performance contracting is a method where an agency can pay for the project using the energy savings that they generate through efficiency upgrade. So there's no additional capital outlay for the state agency to upgrade their systems. You pay the contractor out of what you saved. Right, exactly. And one of the things that also helps is, of course, I'm sure you've heard this too, deferred maintenance. And it also helps the agencies to address some of their deferred maintenance needs at the same time. Yeah, when you say agencies, what's it is? Government agencies? Government state and county. Oh, county too, you're covering county? Right, we've helped state and county of Honolulu on a couple of projects. We just recently helped the Board of Water Supply with their performance contract. What we do is we offer technical assistance in the contract department. In negotiating the contract. Contract reviewing the investment grade audit. But sometimes it depends on the needs of the department or agency. We may help with the creation of our request for proposal. Or we also may help in reviewing the proposals that are received. So it really depends on what the agency's needs are. And we've done that. Well, won't there come a time when they know well enough how to do that by themselves? What I'm saying is that right now, we're in the sort of the blush period of trying to figure out performance contracting and make it really work. Make it better than cash investment. Better than paying all these guys cash money is better to give them a kind of commission on their success. It's a great success contract is what it is. So won't there come a time when they have the expertise themselves? I assume you're training them and they're having experiences from which they can learn. So one of these days soon, three, four, five, 10 years, they're gonna know well enough how to do it themselves, am I right? Well, I think that is the hope, Jay, honestly. I think the challenge for all of the departments and agencies is resources. Not only in terms of financial resources to be able to have the kind of qualified employees they need, but also in terms of human resources. Do they have enough people or staff to be able to adequately address those issues? And this is centralization. I understand, this means that they don't have the experts who can cut these deals. You guys can see it all and you can help them cut the deals in whatever agency they are, even if that agency has no expertise in arranging performance contracts, yeah. That's correct, so I do a part. No, this is really the feedback. The other thing that we should keep in mind is that building codes are also changing continuously. And the energy efficiency group has somebody who, at least one person, who's always dedicated to one, working with the Building Code Council to adopt new codes, make sure we're up to speed and that we are trying to the extent possible and incorporate as much as we can. So, I mean, to your point about- Howard Wigg, yes. Yes, Howard Wigg. He's very much involved in that. One of my heroes in life in this whole world, Howard Wigg, one of my heroes, yeah. So, I mean, definitely our office very much wants as many people to be engaged and involved and trained, but then we also recognize that a lot of things are changing, whether we're talking about energy efficiency or renewable energy or transportation. So, the beautiful thing about our group is that we tend to keep a pulse on what's happening overall and are able to provide as much guidance and insight to the stakeholders that we work with on latest practices and technologies and just sometimes making the connections amongst different people. Stakeholders, interesting, because, you know, we were speaking before about agencies, that means state and county agencies, talking about Howard Wigg, and he's doing code that affects everyone, everyone who builds anything is gonna be subject to his work and the refinement of the code, which is really a great contribution to the state. By this administration, I might add. But what about me, the ordinary Schmoe? What about me? I'm not an agency, and I'm not necessarily building anything, but I wanna be more efficient. Do you reach me or do you leave it to Hawaii Energy to reach me? Typically, we work with Hawaii Energy and leave that part to that agency because everyone, as you know, they contribute every month through their electricity bill. Right, and this goes out again. And it goes out again to Hawaii Energy, which then allows them to issue the rebates for the, typically the general public as well as businesses. So what I get is that the efficiency branch of HSEO, the one year acting director, is dealing with government mostly. Mostly, and we do get the general public contacting our office occasionally. I'm sure they call. So when they do, we either try and assist them at that time, or if we're not able to, then we try to point them to the right person or department or entity that can help them. But they call you with questions about energy efficiency because that's the branch. Yes. Okay, I think we gotta handle on that, Veronica. I think it was good. We're gonna take a short break. We're gonna digest, we're only on mental digestion. Sounds good. We're gonna try to sort it out. And then one minute later to come back, we're gonna focus on you on renewables and how you are changing our state even as we speak. Veronica Roka, Alan Okamoto. Sounds good. We'll be right back. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha, I'm Carol Mon Lee. Think Tech Hawaii's volunteer chief, operating officer, and occasional host, and this is Minky. For the first time, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online, web-based fundraising campaign to raise $40,000. Your thanks to Think Tech will run only during the month of November, and you can help. Please donate what you can so Think Tech Hawaii can continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming. I've already made my donation and look forward to yours. Please send in your tax-deductible contribution by going to this website, www.thanksforthinktech.cozvox.com. On behalf of the community enriched by Think Tech Hawaii's 30-plus weekly shows, thank you, mahalo, and shesher for your generosity. Okay, we're back, we're live, and if you saw that woman just a minute ago, that was Carol Mon Lee during the break with Minky. Minky too is Minky's name. Minky's our company mascot here at Think Tech. And she was talking about thanks for Think Tech Hawaii, and we hope you'll participate in our fund drive in the month of November, because we need to do fund drives. That's our business model, is generosity from our underwriters and our supporters and the public. That's what she was talking about, yeah. Okay, moving right along then, Veronica Roka, renewable energy, how did you get into this? You go to school for it? I mean, what turns you on about renewable energy? Yeah, it's so interesting. I've often heard people say, oh, if you put something out into the world, it'll come to you, right? So when I applied for college, I wrote this whole essay about how I wanted to change the world and I wanted to be an environmental engineer. So I went to undergrad, did mechanical engineering, graduated. Mechanical engineering, I think it's great. I'm always delighted to find women engineers, yeah? Usually engineers, it sounds like a man's thing, but it's not anymore, no? I went to get to a point where people don't have a reaction to that, where it's just like, oh yeah, mechanical engineer or female, no problem. Maria Tomae, for example. Exactly. So I graduated and I went to work for the medical technology industry and I did that for about seven years. And what drove me to it was this desire to just help people and feel that my work was being put towards something that would have a positive impact. Came to Hawaii and there's not a huge medical technology industry here. So refocusing and changing industries, I went back to just my mission, which is I wanna do something that's going to be positive for the world and I learned about the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. I started working for, so Poojee, do you remember that? Sure. It's a concentrated solar power startup at the time. And then I was recruited by the Hawaii State Energy Office to lead this renewable energy group. Oh, that goes back a few years, how many years has that gone back? It's been five years now and I've learned so much. You've been there almost as long as Alan, then. Who came in first, man? You, you were there. She's been there a lot longer than, well not a lot, almost as long as I have been. I think I joined probably six months or so or a year after Veronica became a... Two of your old timers, that's why I'm here. Yeah. So it's been so good because I came from the private sector and going into the public sector, I mean I've learned things about how do you actually pass a law? And then it's not just about passing the law but making sure that it gets implemented in a way that it's going to meet the intention. This is complicated. It gets really complicated. You didn't learn this in your engineering program. No, no, no, no. And you know, I also didn't learn it in business school. These are, I would say, skills that you can only really learn in working in government and have an appreciation for it. So it's been a really good ride. Yeah, so okay, so what does it mean to run renewables for SHSEO? Yeah, really good question and it has evolved over the last five years. So for example, over the last five years we've been really focused on some very key regulatory proceedings as interveners or participants ranging from the original integrated resource plan to what is now an approved power supply improvement plan distributed energy resources, been very much involved in that, was involved in the next era merger. I think our role under Kerala as interveners or participants of providing testimony, providing comments. Did you take a position consistent with the governor's view that there should be no merger? That was, yes, that is correct. So in evaluating all the evidence that was presented to us by the applicants, which was an XTERRA and the HECO companies, we looked at it and our recommendation was that we didn't believe that it was in the interest of the ratepayers for many reasons, but we also provided what we felt were ways to improve that so that it could be in the benefit of that. Oh, interesting, but that wasn't adopted, nobody did anything about that. It must be some frustration because you're a staff function because you can analyze and make statements and do analytics of all kinds and some of it goes into the nether. And that's true for everybody, right? Okay, all right. So for example, you know, a developer may have an amazing technology, but it may not be a good fit for Hawaii. HECO companies, you know, they've proposed a bunch of different things. Some of them have come to fruition, have done very well and others, well, they just were not compatible with the wants and the needs of this place. And some of them just go away for no good reason at all. I mean, just you could sit, we could make a list of the graveyard possibilities that have sort of slid down the slope and disappeared on us. But you know what? I'd rather focus on a lot of really, you want to be positive all the time, don't you? I knew that. A lot of really good work and things that have been implemented. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, now moving into, you know, we have a new leader at the Hawaii State Energy Office and looking forward, I see us being more involved at a higher level in helping to shape policies. You haven't had a leader since what? Six months anyway, huh? Because Mark Glick left in the spring, as I recall. No, Mark Glick left towards the end of last year. And then, and actually we had a very good interim administrator. I actually could not have asked for a better, Terry Searles, he was fantastic. He comes with a very deep bench of experience. Deep bench of experience, it's true. And he's very knowledgeable. He sat in his chair, I was very impressed with him. Yeah, yeah. So it was just such a pleasure working with him. And Carolyn was, Carolyn was in deep end, in the HSCO before she was appointed as the chief energy officer. What was she doing then? She was actually the energy efficiency branch manager. So she was in Allen's position. She was in your position, but you're still acting. Are you gonna get elevated soon? That's a question to be answered. Okay, that's a little bit. I'm for you, Allen, thank you. Thank you. Me too, Allen. Thanks, Allen. Yeah. Okay, so that's where Carolyn came from. Carolyn came from that. So looking into the future, I would say more of that policy, higher level involvement and guidance that we intend to provide to governor's office, but then also to other state agencies. More, I would say, support in general to move forward with our renewable energy, but also energy efficiency goals. And helping to shape also the clean energy transportation sector. That's in systems. That's in the systems group. Under Chris Younger. Under Chris Younger. We talked about greater emphasis in that data and making more of that available and understandable to everybody as well. So a lot of good changes. How much influence does the Renewable Energy Department branch in HSEO have on renewables in Hawaii? I mean, are you only studying it or? I mean, like in the case of Allen, do they call you up and say, Veronica, I gotta ask you a question. I need to know that this guy is outside my house. He wants to put it on solar panels. What should I do? You get that? Yes, absolutely. What's so interesting about our office is that we have such a small group. And yet we've worked on so many different projects. Anywhere from meeting with developers and connecting them with other agencies or giving them guidance on like, we really think you should approach it this way in terms of developing your project or doing this type of outreach to legislative session. We get about 200 bills that we... 200 bills. Before we go to the bills, though, I just wanna seize on one thing you said. And that is my understanding of D-Bed from early on, from way back in, forget his name. He was in the 90s. Maryskaya, maybe? The 90s, he was the D-Bed officer. He'll come back to me. Okay. You know who I'm talking about? In the 1990s. There were several. There were several. Japanese guy. Seiji Naya? That's it. Seiji Naya, he was like the classical D-Bed guy for a long time. And the notion was, and you seized on it, I mean, you mentioned it a minute ago and I'm interested in it, is that D-Bed is the Department of Business and Economic Development, hold tourism for a minute. That means you bring people together. That means that one side calls you, the other side calls you, and you connect them, okay? And it sounds like we'll get to other things, but it sounds like part of your role in renewables is to know who's on one side of the equation, who's on the other side, and let them come together right there in your office and see if they can cut a deal or at least discuss a deal right there under your tutelage somehow. It's absolutely, and it doesn't all happen in our offices. A lot of what we do is connecting people where we see that there may be opportunities to collaborate, and not everything happens immediately. So for example, I participated in a diplomatic visit to our sister's day, Fukuoka. This was with several members of the legislature two years ago. Met with a lot of different people in Japan, including a professor who was very interested in finding a way to collaborate with UH. So now two years later, it's come to fruition. We kept up with the relationship and she's sponsoring a student from UH to go to Kyushu University, pitch a research idea, and she's also actively working with me and other people at UH trying to get more students to go and collaborate with Kyushu University. So it definitely is about industry, but I also wanted to stress that it's more than just industry. It's also about training the next generation of leaders, next generation of people that are gonna be contributing to our economy. Well, on that point, we only have a minute left, but on that point, I wanted to ask you guys, what's gonna happen here? We have a goal. Frankly, it's aspirational, because I don't really see any evidence to suggest that all things are gonna come into place by 2045 or 2040 in Bingo. There you go. Are we gonna reach that? Do we have a reasonable chance of reaching that? Are we on a path now to reach it? And what can D-Bed or Bediata, Hawaii State Energy Office, do to help us reach that? This is an important question. Take your time, take a deep breath, okay? Who wants to go first? I'll go first. All right. So we actually have more than one goal. We have the 100% renewable energy goal to meet by the year 2045, but then we also have an energy efficiency goal, which is roughly 30% reduction in energy efficiency. And then we have a higher level planning goal for the state to get off of fossil fuels in the not only electricity, but ground transportation. You called it aspirational. I actually feel that the fact that we have an approved power supply improvement plan that says this is how we're gonna get 200% renewable energy is a very, very good first step. Do you support it? Yes. Do you give good testimony on that BSA? Absolutely. We were very much involved in that. In the creation of the plan or the approval of the plan? Both. Well, no, the approval, I take it back. The approval, that's under the jurisdiction of the PUC, but we were very much involved. Of course, but do you give testimony in favor of the plan? Absolutely. It was really important that we got that through, don't you think? Absolutely. Because it was languishing in five years of planning and no plan, and now we have a plan. This is a happy time. It is very happy time. And we also acknowledge that there's a lot that still needs to happen. So looking into the future, I think we need to keep place beside a key role for debate aside from facilitating conversations and getting involved in policy and whatnot, is bringing to the forefront technologies that are gonna be extremely disruptive in the future. And working with people. Destructive is a good word. Everybody got that? Yes. It's a good word. Working with stakeholders proactively. And I'm talking about machine learning, virtual reality, crypto currencies. You're working on those things now? But we need to be, no, the thing is we're not, but we need to be. And I feel that's gonna be also a key role for debate. Alan, I told you that Veronica has this, she's a fire hydrant. Well, she's a wealth of information. Wealth of information, you know? But we're now at the end of our show. And I'd like to offer you the opportunity to have that last word. So my question is, how much of what Veronica has said, do you agree with? I absolutely agree with everything Veronica said, actually. Wow. Smart answer. What would you add? Well, I would like to thank Veronica first for mentioning the energy efficiency goal because there's two separate ones and people really focused on the renewable energy. For us, we think we can reach the 30% reduction and through the present programs we have, we wanna continue, upgrade the energy codes, get it adopted by the counties since they've already been adopted by the state and then just keep moving forward. And so we think our goal is attainable, definitely. Great. Melanie Okamoto, acting what? Chief Manager, Director? Manager, Branch Manager. Acting Branch Manager of Energy Efficiency and HSEO, High State Energy Office in D-Bed and Veronica Rocha, the Branch Manager, I'm gonna get this right, of renewable energy in our state. Very good. Exciting, and I'm sitting here with them. Thank you so much, Monica. Thank you. Thank you. Aloha, always a pleasure. Thank you.