 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. One, we're back. We're live. 10 o'clock on a given Wednesday. It's Wednesday, meaning energy day, right? Peter Rossek, Hawaiian Electric is here. Hi, Peter. Good to see you, Jay. Oh, it's nice to see you. Tony Gill. Tony from Gill Everlands, alright? Yeah, this is an important project. And Nick Hendrickson, who joins us by phone. From where are you, Nick? I am in San Diego, California, rainy San Diego, California, actually. Our hearts go out to you, Nick. Alright. Thank you. I appreciate it. We're here to talk about this really interesting project, which is just coming together by an agreement with, of course, Tony, that's Gill Everlands, and a company called Eurus. And Nick is the Vice President of Development at Eurus, and of course Hawaiian Electric, Peter Rossek. So this is a very important project. And there's some heavy players involved in this, for sure. And it has all the ring of something that changes the paradigm. Peter, present the project, okay? Well, I think really Nick should, but we've worked with Eurus, and we're very excited to have this project. It's on the last viable, developable wind site on Oahu. Nick, why don't you lay out the technicalities? Yeah, sure. I'll try to give a high level overview of the project specifics, and thank you for having me on, albeit kind of remotely. So this project is a wind project, like Peter referenced. It's going to be 13 turbines located kind of above the Cahe Power Plant area and kind of back into the kind of the hills that kind of proceed back from that. As far as total nameplate or capacity of generation, it's going to be about 47 megawatts. That will generate about 150 megawatt hours of electricity every year. So just for reference, it's equivalent to about, you know, 25, 27,000, you know, average Oahu homes use yearly. And that kind of corresponds to about 3% of Oahu's total electric demand on an annual basis. The project that we're envisioning will have a 22 year project lifespan. That's the agreement that we've signed with HECO. And we're very happy that the pricing that we've agreed to, which is at about 11 cents per kilowatt hour, is about, it's actually one of the lowest cost clean energy projects in the state. So we're happy to contribute towards HECO's renewable targets and do it at a very economical cost. You're associated with Toyota. Can you tell us how? Sure. So Eurus is a company that's actually been dedicated to renewable energy since the late 1980s. So some of our first projects globally were done in California in like 1987. So kind of before renewable energy was really a big focus of a lot of other of the larger players, we were really 100% dedicated to it. We are a Japanese owned company like you referenced. Our majority shareholder is a company called Toyota Susho, which is a publicly traded company. It's part of the Toyota group. So not like Toyota Motors, but part of the same kind of group of companies. And then our minority shareholder is Tokyo Electric Power, which is the major electric provider for the Tokyo Metropolitan area. So we've got facilities all over the world, again, all renewable wind and PV solar. And our operations out of the US where we started doing our development globally are based here in San Diego where I'm sitting right now. And your first project, 1987 is still operating the wind project. Yeah. Correct. They are some of the earliest projects in the Mojave Desert kind of right outside of Los Angeles. Yes. And they are still they're still up and running and generating power for for the people of the LA area. Very interesting. Okay, Peter, as far as Hawaiian Electric is concerned. Well, you see from what Nick has said, we've got a company with a long view of things with an established track record. They come in, they build, they own, they operate. And they, you know, we're very impressed with them. As Nick said, for our customers, 11 cents a kilowatt hour is one of the lowest rates. And for us, the main goal is to have a diversified portfolio or renewable portfolio standard that includes all the solar we can get for sure. But all the wind that we can get reasonably biofuels on the other islands where we have geothermal or hydro, we want that too. We can never get to 100% or close unless we take advantage of all these resources. And as I said, this is the last viable wind site on this island. And so, you know, this is a real step forward and 3% addition to our RPS is really dramatic and a single project that has a very limited footprint, as Tony will tell you. And finally, as Tony will tell you, I'm sure, you know, we're contributing to the re rejuvenation, the reforestation of the lands that have been pretty sorely degraded in that area. So, you know, we have a lot of infrastructure on the Leeward Coast, Kahi Power Plant, not perhaps the most beautiful site in the world, but very important to this island. We understand that we owe the people of that community a lot. And reforesting, which will involve jobs and environmental growth and opportunities, I believe, is really a good thing all around. So a good partnership there. We believe it. Two things you said I want to drill down on. One is the notion that we needed for Oahu. Oahu has the greatest need, the greatest demand of all the islands by far, by far. And so, and Oahu is the least amount of space. True. You get a kind of intersection on that. So that becomes very important to have land dedicated to renewables so that we can provide renewables and build out. Absolutely. When you think about it, it's not just the population. We have the main military establishment here, a huge consumer of energy. We have the University of Hawaii and a number of campuses, huge consumers. The banks, the hospitals or, you know, the headquarters of many, many companies. The biggest airport in the state and so on. You know, it's not just so we have 80 percent of the people, but we have probably 90 percent of the infrastructure of the state here. And that all requires electricity. And as you say, there aren't very many places where you can put these kinds of infrastructure without being in somebody's backyard. And we understand perfectly that people are concerned what happens in their neighborhoods and their communities. And we have, we all have to pitch in. I mean, there's just no room left for nimbyism when we're facing all this bad news about climate change. All this, you know, these very worrisome things happening to the climate and we've experienced it directly. So it's not theoretical. The other thing you talked about I want to drill down on is this notion of liability security, if you will, and diversification of the portfolio. So if you had everything piled into one renewable methodology, that's not as secure, is it, as a portfolio of multiple diversified technologies. Exactly. Because if a catastrophe happens, if any event happens that is likely to knock out one, it's less likely to knock out the other. Tell me more. Well, exactly as you say. If we spend almost 100 years depending on one fuel source, oil imported today, mostly from Asia and the Middle East. And that's expensive. It's damaging to the environment. And it's very vulnerable to disruptions of any kind in the Middle East or Indonesia and Southeast Asia and so forth. To get off of that and to be on one source, even if there were one source, which there is not, would not be a good plan. The plan is to have as many different kinds as possible. As I said, biofuel, solar, wind are the main ones for this island and biofuel, biomass, so that we do have that kind of ability because each of these technologies has different characteristics as well. You have to, you want as much firm power as possible, but you also need to accommodate variable power. You need to be able to balance a system that's getting increasingly technical and difficult to balance. So that's why the diversity is so important. On the firm question, I want to talk, Tony, about the firm question, and I'm relating back to the conversation we had before the show began. The remarkable thing about this wind project is that it's firm, or almost firm, right? Well, Nick is better on this than I am, but one thing about solar is you know when it's going to happen, which is noon, and it tapers off on either side. So the difference between that, which produces an immense amount of power when you don't exactly need it and requires power shifting. The difference from that to wind is that wind will operate in other times, so it provides a better input. Cole and Ice, let's use that power. Nick can probably expand on this, but can you go further than that? It's doubly important because as I understand a project that's currently structured doesn't require batteries. It's good enough to go as is. This is remarkable. This is important. That's correct. I'm sorry to interrupt. So Tony, Tony is absolutely right. One of the unique features of this wind project specifically, because there are wind projects elsewhere that the wind profile isn't as complimentary with PV solar generation, which of course happens during the daylight hours. This project really does, in my mind, really facilitate additional solar generation because you're adding generation with this wind project when you really need it and can get it with solar. We generate a substantial amount of our energy kind of on an annual, on an average day at nighttime when there is no, there's no sun, obviously. So we don't really need the battery to store the power during the daylight hours when you don't need it because you've got a surplus of solar generation and release it at nighttime. So it really does complement HECO's success at deploying PV generation on their system and also further their progress towards the higher mandates for renewable energy. So we look at it as kind of a win-win because it allows you to balance the system more and also kind of continue that progress. And a lot of this has to do with location and you are the location man in our conversation today. You have a location that offers the possibility of continuing wind and that allows for relatively firm power from wind. No need for batteries. Save a fortune and all the complexities of battery technology. Well, it's, it's interesting because you've got maybe four sites on Oahu that could work for wind. Wind will blow nearly every place but not at a commercial level. Okay, and a point blows wind, but it's certainly out. No one wants to touch and a point. The lovely conservation area that needs to stay wild. You've got Kahuku, you've got the certain areas in the lee of the Kolao and you've got the Pahlehua area. That's it. Now, what we have to offer from a technical point of view is that this happens to be adjacent to the Kaya Power plant and adjacent to the trunk lines that feeds central Oahu. So it's easy to connect. Well, if you were in Jamaica, you'd probably throw your bear wire over the, you know, but we're not. We'll have an adequate clip in, but it's not that hard to do. It doesn't require, we're hoping for a technical replacement for duct tape, but the whole thing is that the proximity is there. And so you don't need to further pipe the power to some place it's needed. It goes right in where it is needed. Now, in terms of the land impact, though, this is a very important point. Some people think that rooftop solar will solve it. No, not even close. Not even close. Assuming the technology, why are you? There's not enough space. Okay, it's not efficient enough. Right, because if you have a given lot with a residence on it, the actual rooftop square footage is a really small percentage of the lot. So solar is nice and clean, but it does not produce at a high rate for acreage use. So I'll give you an example. Assuming this project goes forward somewhat in its current form, that's a four year permitting process during which things get switched around and altered and input is considered. We will probably end up with about three quarters of an acre actual footprint for the tower bases. Three quarters of an acre. Now, if we take Eurus's very exemplary YNI solar project, and we scale that up to match the total annual power production, we'd be talking an impact of somewhere between 530 and 550 acres. Way more acreage. Look, this is for a given people. It would take more than the total inhabited area of Nonakuli Valley to equal what we can do on three quarters of an acre. This is really an important point. Look, it's over 700 plus times more area efficient than solar. Yeah, people should want more wind. Yeah, they're big. The problem is big. To address the problem is going to require a considerable bit of struggle. But from our point of view, we like the small footprint because it will enable us to reforest and maintain agricultural use in the area. This better land that it was than it is now. Well, bloody well better be that's the purpose of our having got into this in the first place, which is to reverse 300 years of environmental degradation by trying to restore something like the whole initially. That's the starting point. But what do you do now? I am not against solar. We need everything that could possibly be done. But from a land use point of view, solar is like an artificial lava field. You can't graze it. You can't plant it. You can't preserve the archaeology under it. You can't reforest it. You can't maintain recreational uses because it is a single purpose thing. But you can graze right up to the base of a wind turbine. You can plant flowers right up to the base of a wind turbine. And you can reforest in the gullies and not interrupt the wind flow. So what do you what is what is Gil Evelands bring to the table on this? You you have some land. And it would be helpful if the land were reforested and improved and all that. But what are you bringing to the table of this deal? Ideas. Okay, idea. Peter, shake it and said yes. Yes. And I got to say because Tony can't or won't, you know, the Gil family here, you know, goes back a couple of generations. Tom Gil was Lieutenant Governor and member of Congress. The family has Tom's brother, I guess, Lauren was a brother. It's probably the leading, you know, historically, the one of the leading environmentalists in the state formed the Sierra Club did a huge amount of hands on and teaching and guiding and inspiring people. The family has this intense environmental history, community service history. There aren't many families or companies who would be willing to commit to buying 1600 acres of fairly pretty substantially degraded land with the hope that in 20 or 30 years it can be reforested and reinvigorated. And we're very fortunate to have a family that's willing to commit. Put another zero on that timeline. Okay, you know, I won't be here in any case. But the point is, you know, to have that kind of long term look at what's good for the community, what's good for the INA. We don't have many institutions. I'd like to think Hawaiian Electric 126 years is, you know, like that. But you know, in terms of putting their money where their mouth is their hard work where their mouth is, you know, the family is is incredible to me. We're lucky. Thank you very much. Let's not leave out that there are a whole lot of people from UH folks from couple a high school from different community groups who've been up there to see what we're trying to do and are pitching in. Well, I'm a learning center as our partner, they do outdoor education, and they actually conduct a certain amount of community community support. Yeah, and I think that you'll find the younger the person, the more they get it. Because when the sea level is coming over the highway, and you can't get to town, right, it's going to be a whole lot more than not be affected by sea level rise at all. No, it's up now it's up over the lip on the top there. What I can't describe it topography. Well, I can but it's a whole lot easier to look at it on a map or to see it. But basically, if you're going by the kaha power plant, you look up, there's kind of a bluff goes up about 400 500 feet and then it tips over and more gently wanders up the hill through gullies and pasture and such. That's where we're going to go. And we're going to locate the thing so that in non Akuli Valley, you should not see anything. It's not going to be in anybody's face. Well, everyone will feel duly offended. Right? Okay, but what they have to understand I will not feel you sure that okay. But you understand the scale of the problem. People have not grasped the scale of the problem. And Hawaiian Electric bless their heart has studied this intensely. And if you bother to read the several thousand pages and go into the appendices, which granted, only your your ship will do. You come to the end and you find a whole series of scenarios. And what we are able to do is say, look, by 2045, in the best case, we're going to need probably 5,000 acres of extra grid scale solar production. In the worst case, which we hope never comes to pass that if there were no further solar rooftop adoption, you'd be talking 20,000 acres. Okay, that's all the land between Village Park and the North Shore on the flat that cannot be done. So we're going to face conflicts in land use. Now, we're trying to move play this chess game three, four movers ahead by sparing people 550 acres that would otherwise need to go to pressure off the situation. How big is Alamoana Park? Green area, about 90 acres. How big is the stadium and all the parking about 86 acres? 550 acres we don't need because we can put this stuff on three quarters of an acre. And that's so Hawaiian Electric gets that part too, because they need to cover their future scenario. Well, I asked you before the show, Peter, I mean, to me, this this seems like a new chapter. It seems like, you know, can see the light at the end of the diversification tunnel. You can see see the possibility, the real possibility of getting to our goal with this kind of project. Getting a lot closer to our goal. That's for sure. You know, it's, as I said, it's not a one, not any one thing. We've got this project coming along. We've got a number of solar farms, grid scale solar farms under construction. We're about to sign contracts with seven, more of them for three on a wahoo, two on a Maui, two on the Big Island, all of it, you know, every bit of it matters and every bit of it contributes to getting us closer to that goal. We've opened Schofield power plant in the last year, a fuel flexible plant that can use biofuel and that is located away from the ocean up on elevation, and that is going to enhance our reliability and enhance our survivability and incoming storms are our resilience. You know, we don't have the luxury Tony's a wind guy, he's got a wind farm and I love it. We don't have the luxury of saying, Yeah, we just, we just want to do when we want to do all the solar we can everybody's got to throw everything we want to do all the wind we can everybody's got to get geothermal. So for us, I don't think it's so much of a turn as further progress on this road, which we started on about 10 years ago. Glad to hear it described it is a big step, but it is a step among many steps that have to be taken. So Nick, you know, you mentioned it was 11 cents. It was pretty good. That's that's that's really very good number. Actually, it's 10.69. I remember that. Not quite 11. But how do you get there? How do you how are you able to, you know, provide wind to Hawaiian Electric at that price? That's not easy. And it's sort of, it's remarkable. Yeah, so a couple of things there. It's a good it's a really good question. You know, Tony had mentioned earlier that one aspect that was very that made the makes the specific site viable. In a unique way is the look the kind of the existing location of the of the transmission infrastructure, the, you know, the power lines that come up from from the Kahe plant. So that is a very important aspect to the project, because what that allows us to do is essentially, we don't have to build new infrastructure. And of course, new infrastructure, or extensive new infrastructure, rather, we can utilize what's already there. Because if we did have to, if we did have to build new infrastructure, you know, with that, those costs have to be reflected and ultimately the price, because the price essentially in a very basic sense is a is a function of the cost of the project to build. And, you know, the wind resource. So right off the bat, you've got a site that has from an infrastructure standpoint is as well situated because you're already using existing infrastructure. And then from a resource standpoint, like Tony said, there's a very few locations remaining on Oahu that are viable from a from a resource standpoint. And, you know, for example, he mentioned a kind of point that may be viable from a resource standpoint from but from a variety of other reasons, it's not viable. So the reason why in a nutshell, we're able to get that pricing down such a such a low level is a combination of the resource being some of the best resource on the island of Oahu, and from a locational perspective, with regards to the infrastructure, it being really ideally located. So it's really kind of a win win in terms of resource and and infrastructure. And that's how we get to that price level. And you've said you've mentioned in the past that although these turbines will look pretty much like other turbines, we've all seen that they they're becoming more efficient as well. Isn't that a factor in this? That's right. That's right. I'm sorry, Peter, thank you for reminding me. One of the other things that have that has happened in the industry over the last, you know, decade is the turbines have gotten increasingly more efficient at getting the resource, you know, frankly, out of the air. So as time has gone on, the manufacturers have been has become a lot more sophisticated in all aspects of the turbine technology, whether it's the airfoils on the blades or more efficient, more efficient generators. And that's really unlocked areas that in the past may have not been viable from a resource standpoint, until recently. So Peter's right, that another really important factor has been the improvement in the technology of the turbines themselves that allow for this site to really offer a good price to the HECO and HECO's customers. And these turbines are quieter and quieter. I think Nick would that's important from these turbines, correct, 260 feet high. Well, what's the what's the diameter of the blade? How is that what 90 feet 100 feet? So the the the that from the base of the of the tower to the hub, which is kind of, you know, the middle of the of the rotor, as we call it, is that is that 250 feet figure, the rotor itself kind of the swept diameter, if you will, it should be 116 meters. So I'm kind of trying to convert meters into in defeat. Okay, thanks. But it'd be 116 meter rotor diameter machines. Wow. Okay, but because they're big, because they're high tech, they don't have to be as many of them as they used to have to be. So you can with correct 1616 only 16 really, of these turbines can cover a lot of 26 thousand that you say homes and all that. It's a very large productivity. And I know that many people don't like to look at anything. What they're looking at currently is degraded bio sphere. That's, it's not attractive to a biologist or anybody who enjoys the history of Hawaiian forest. But, you know, just like when clipper ships came in, clipper ships were immense. And these are kind of the clipper ships of wind power. They're tall. They go fast. They make but unlike the old pinwheel arrangement, you know, you can see some people setting up pinwheels for memorials. And there are a lot of little buzzy stuff. These are few and they have a more graceful pace. So to me, they look like clipper ships. Are they strong, Nick? Are they strong enough to resist extreme weather? Yeah, absolutely. So these are the turbines that we're anticipating for the site are going to be manufactured by a company called Vestus out of Denmark. And they have some of the longest history of manufacturing this type of technology in the industry. They have turbines that are cited all around the world in extremely, you know, difficult environments, whether it's the North Sea and offshore. So they have a lot of experience making sure that the type of design that you're utilizing for the project is suited to the site. And kind of as a specific reference to my company, Euras, you know, we look at these projects in a in a way that an owner looks at them because we expect to be owning the projects for a long period of time. We have an inherent interest in making sure the technology that we're purchasing and installing at a site will last for the life of the project. So we spend a lot of time and there's a lot of a lot of engineers who understand the technical aspects far better than I do that that really agonize over these details to ensure that the the turbines are her right for the site and won't have any issues during the operational period. On the purchase power agreements, these these agreements are 22 years long. Why 22? Why not less? Why not more? What are the considerations that go into that? Well, I think 20 years is sort of the you start from the 20 year point and then you look at what you can do. I don't think anybody envisions everything coming to an end in 22 years. But from a contracting legalistic basis, as I understand it, and I know less about both the legal and technical things than Nick does. But lots of men who needs it. You know, you you want to in terms of of of you know, amortizing the costs and so forth, you look you start by looking at a 20 year frame. And then then you move forward. But I don't I don't think there's anything magical about the 22 year number. We have power plants, frankly, that are almost as old as I am. And that's fairly scary. Exactly. So, you know, these are our long term investments in the contractors for 22 years. And I can emphasize enough how attractive the price is. As you say, under 11 cents, the avoided cost of oil today is about 15 cents. There is I don't think there's another renewable project, certainly not at this size that is coming in under 11 cents. And it stays that and it stays that for 22 years. They have predictability. Right. And, you know, Hawaiian Electric doesn't take a markup or a profit on this. The the cost is passed directly to the customers based on how much they use. So this is really a win for our customers. And we're very, we're very gratified that we can bring it in, your risk can bring it in at the slow price. Yeah, we are too. Okay, last last words, Tony, what what would you like to leave the audience with? What what message do you want to give them as a takeaway? And from our point of view as owners, this is not an energy project. It is an ecosystem restoration project in which Eurus and Hawaiian Electric are assuming a keystone position. They will enable us to do the fairly grand things we want to do. And we think that what, aside from the energy perspective, Hawaii needs to look at food sustainability, needs to look at putting water into the ground. It needs to manage fire and other hazards in the area. And on top of that, wouldn't it be nice to see something like the ancient Hawaiian forest and all its wonderful hardwoods and species repopulating the area. That's where we're trying to get. And we're grateful that Eurus has the muscle in the know how and Hawaiian Electric has a foresight to see that this is a thing that can be done. We appreciate their collaboration. So wonderful use of the land really in our time. We think so. For us, Nick, what would you leave our audience with? So I would try to follow up on Tony's eloquent last words and say that we at Eurus as a company are very happy to be working with what we view as two really unique and critical partners for this project. You know, Tony and his family and also Hiko. It's a very unique project in that, unlike others, it's not the same. This is a much much much more deeper partnership between the three parties. So we're happy for this to be the second large project that we're working on for the state of Hawaii. And we hope that this demonstrates our commitment to helping bring the state to its renewable targets. So we're excited about the possibilities going forward. And Peter, your closing words, your takeaway, could you include your plan for other projects of this nature on Oahu or elsewhere? Well, as I mentioned earlier, we've got this wind farm. There's another wind farm that may be built on this island. We are about to close on seven new grid scale solar installations across mostly across the central part of the island. What used to be called the NRG or now called Cleanway solar projects 110 megawatts are under construction. Westlock is under construction. You're going to be able to take all the fossil fuel plants offline here pretty soon? Pretty soon, I wouldn't want to say, but sooner, you know, in a process, you know, gradually over the next 27 years, we that's what we have to do. We have to reduce our fossil fuel footprint entirely to 100% is our goal. And the only way we do that is a step at a time. Adding this project, adding the other projects. We're going to see the biggest solar grid scale solar projects on the neighbor islands in this new, this seven seven contract movement that I mentioned. So we're proceeding on a lot of fronts. And I would also say, in a lot of other areas, we're working on the electrification and transportation to reduce oil use in that area. We're working on demand response programs, which will allow customers to reduce their bills by cooperating in our in our maintenance of the grid. We're working on grid modernization, because although this particular project can be hooked to the grid fairly simply, and at relatively low cost, we have to modernize our whole grid, even if we got to 100 could get to 100% tomorrow, we don't have a grid that kind of accommodate it. We don't have a grid that can manage it so everybody's lights stay on. So we have we're doing all these other things. We talk endlessly a lot about renewable energy and this project and that project. There is an underlying foundation that Hawaiian Electric is working on grid modernization, customer programs that are all part of getting to where we need to go. Great story. It's a great story, Peter. Thank you so much for coming down, Peter. It's a pleasure. Thank you for coming down. Nice, Jay. And Nick, thank you for joining us today. Aloha. I appreciate it. Aloha. Aloha. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha. I will invite all of you to