 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Okay, we're back, we're live. We're starting off on the 10 o'clock block here on a Wednesday, Energy Wednesday, I'd like to say. And where is energy on Maui in Molokai? So we had a trip there last Thursday, courtesy of Fred Riddell. He is the Commissioner of Energy for Maui County, and we got to see a number of things and wanted to catch up with him and see if we could sort of make analysis and figure out what it all means. So welcome to the show by Skype, Fred Riddell. Great to have you here. I'll thank you. Great to be on. So yeah, let's review first what we did. You set up the itinerary. It was wonderful to see all the things in Maui and then in Molokai that relate to the question of how energy renewables, especially how they're doing in Maui County. So can you take us through the itinerary and remind me? I was so tired we got back. I couldn't remember. Remind me of what we did last Thursday. Right. Well, we started with Krispy Kreme donuts, but after that, we did go over to the Wahi Wind Farm owned by Sempra and took a look at those operations, interviewed the gentleman there that told us a little bit about how it operates, what they're doing. We learned a little bit about their environmental mitigation even and some of the things that they do there, which I think is one big part of renewable energy on Maui. There's plenty of wind resources that are currently being used. And then from there, we went over and toured at Maui Tropical Plantation. We toured with Pacific biodiesel and Bob King looking at one of their new crops of sunflowers. And to learn a little bit about what they're doing and what their vision is, both from an agricultural standpoint, a sustainable agricultural standpoint, and how does that link into energy and perhaps using that to produce fuel and learn a little more there. I saw them in PBN this morning. They concluded an extension contract supplying Hawaiian electric with biofuel. That's really a feather in their cap. They're sustained as a provider of biofuel. In fact, the peaking plant in Kapolei uses their fuel, a big tank of their fuel. So we really have local sustainability in the state over biofuel. Absolutely. It's an interesting product. If you need liquid fuels or even gas fuels, because the county itself is looking at digester projects to produce renewable metering gas, if you could import it or you can get the same product or the same value product, except we're in a renewable form by growing that locally. And so making some of those decisions are some important ones. And I thought that that would be some useful things to learn about on what's going on in Maui. Then from there, of course, we wanted to understand what the Maui Electric is doing. And so we went to the control room there, which I really kind of like. It looked like my old submarine days, a lot of things and blinking lights and knobs and such, which is just wonderful. You know, control room sophisticated, right? It's all the same nomenclature, control room, control room. Yes, yes. Yeah, control room, control room. Yeah, so luckily they don't have a con. So otherwise they'll start driving the islands around. But to really learn a little bit about how does that work? It's really complex right now for sure. They have a very they have a changing system that has different demands on it that it did before and then other demands like it's an aging infrastructure. And so and as we saw on Maui recently with a blackout for an extended period of time, one a day, a few weeks ago, you know, it's Maui Electric that's still bringing the grid up and maintaining that resiliency that the islands need to keep the economy going, to keep people safe, to be able to provide services. And so they're the ones doing that day in and day out. And so it was really interesting to learn a little bit about that. So then we wanted, I thought it would be useful to head over to Molokai because there it's just a little bit different than Maui. It's smaller. It's the control room, as you saw there, vermicro is smaller too. It's operated by one person. The plant itself is, you know, older, but you know, supplying the grid, you know, as it needs to. But the interesting thing there is that Mico is looking to bring that island from an electricity standpoint to 100% renewable energy sooner than other islands, which there's many different things we could talk about on that. But some of the interesting ones are that they had a battery project there that they have been working on to help support the frequency of the grid, which is different than just what everybody thinks about a battery is that I'm going to shift energy here. This high technology thing is trying to actually keep the frequency stabilized on the grid, which is another interesting thing we're able to do. Yeah, 60 hertz. Can you talk about what that means and how you maintain it? Sure, sure. Well, it's, you know, alternating current. This is how most of our grid is, although like portable tape panels and such are in direct current DC, they all, when they go back into the hop home or supplying our outlets are converted through, in that case, an inverter back to produce alternating current. That current that alternate current is operating at 60 hertz. It's how many cycles per second that the voltage fluctuates. And so the that's what you're trying to maintain in a very reliable grid would have that frequency holding very close to 60 hertz at all times. It was traditionally maintained on the grid by having high inertia, big rotating steel machinery. But as we've transitioned in time to having less of those things operating or operating at lower megawatts, they're not providing as much of that inertia on the grid that previously was there. And now you're not getting a lot of that currently from the portable takes the technology that was used for a lot of those doesn't support that, although that part of the technology is also changing. So that grid needs something like this battery there. That what it does is it's a very small battery, but has a very high power level. So if you're looking at a battery to sort of these two components, how much power can deliver at any moment and how much energy it can deliver over a period of time. And so for for this one, it was a I think it's a if I recall correctly, a two megawatts battery, but only about for 18 minutes. And so what that's doing on a grid that's actually at a peak of about three to five megawatts is it's really becoming the big dog in the system and able to move the frequency or hold the frequency very steady, which is a very innovative project. The other things that I understand, I believe we spoke there of is that they're looking at installing a load bank for the grid there to where they want to be able to have over frequency protection where if you didn't have this, you could imagine that the frequency goes very high and perhaps damages some equipment in your home or something like that. So those sort of new technologies are going to be needed on the grid as we transform it to 100 percent renewable energy. Yeah, I noticed in both control rooms we saw, both in Maui and in Molokai, there was a big readout. I guess it's all about big readouts is in the middle of all these monitors and readouts, big readout for the Hertz. And I remember particularly in Maui, it was, you know, it was it was changing from fifty nine point nine to sixty point one and back to sixty again. So the Hawaiian Electric is looking is monitoring this all the time to make sure it's within tolerable limits. The same thing actually in Molokai. So I guess this is I wasn't aware of the need to do that. And now clearly there is a need, obviously, and they're monitoring it. And and now they have these batteries in Molokai. They can I was very I was very impressed with the quality of that station, even though it was diesel, it seemed very compact and efficient and it had this new battery equipment. So all of that was a very interesting tour of the Molokai control room. Yes, absolutely. It was a it's a very interesting plant to to look at. And you're right, they're continually looking at frequency. They're at every moment balancing the amount of power on the grid. So every moment that a cloud goes over a photo will take planters over some homes and that one's not generating as much as it was at some moment where somebody plugs in a large load, like now electric vehicles coming on the grid. Those are becoming larger and larger loads, depending on the charging system. You they they have to continually adjust the amount of power that's getting injected or not injected into the grid to balance it at every moment. All the electrons either get consumed, you know, that were generated in every minute. Yeah, that's really what they're doing is maintaining that frequency and that power. And then the voltage, of course, is is going to be, you know, then another new or another key components as we start to look at two way power flows on the grid and if people start generating from what used to be distributed down out to the house, they generate power back from that direction. The voltage on the grid is going to be different everywhere. And those are going to be new opportunities. And that's really the interesting thing is is that Hawaii has all of these opportunities coming to learn to actually come up with new solutions that could be exported out of Hawaii and really do Hawaii well. And so setting 100 percent renewable energy goal is giving this opportunity that the rest of the world could actually use. Yeah, and I think it's worthy to note that this, you know, that the technology that allows us to work the grid this way to bring all the elements of the grid together in an efficient way. It's part of the march toward renewables. We need to do this and the comforting point of the trip. Was that we are doing this. We are using new technologies to balance the load and otherwise become more efficient in in doing that two way two way directional on the energy you mentioned. I'd like to ask you one one thing, though, Fred, before we take our break and is the half moon project is going to change things in Molokai. Can you just give us the specs on that? Well, I don't know the exact size. And I think that that's still in discussions between Miko and that vendor and I believe that they have a non disclosure agreement. So all the information about it isn't that public at the moment. But I understand that they are looking at doing a large scale battery and photovoltaic project near the power generating station to deliver a good portion of the energy throughout the entire day and into the evening with the batteries. And so that that definitely will be, you know, if it moves forward, you know, another interesting aspect for that island is similar to what was being done on Kauai with the Tesla project first and now an AES project. Both of those will have have similar characteristics. And it's an interesting move forward for the utilities. I believe that some of the solicitations that they may move forward with now will include concepts like that to provide something that's more firm or just as firm as you need it to be. We don't always need 24 hour availability of every single unit. But we do need firm and flexible renewable energy so that that can be delivered in many hours, not just at the moment that the sun is shining. Yeah, I see it as a march forward. Anyway, we marched all around Maui, Maui County with Chris Reynolds who is from what Maui Electric and Todd Kanja who is from Hawaii, Hawaiian Electric here in Honolulu to have this great tour with Fred Redell last Thursday, learned a lot. And, you know, to me, one of the basic principles that I learned was the need to need to take this technology, step forward with it. And it's necessary to do that on the road to renewables. And Hawaii is actually on the road to renewables. And it's comforting to know that this is happening in Maui and also Molokai. We can take a short break. We'll be right back and we'll see if we can look at this from the 50,000 foot level and see the statewide landscape and try to get a handle on where Maui County is in the statewide landscape and energy will be right back with Fred Redell. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. This is Think Tech Hawaii raising public awareness. Good evening. This is me, Angus McTech, the longtime host and starter of Yibachi Talk. Think Tech is important to our community because we bring all kinds of cool ideas and I bring gadgets to the to the show, so you got to watch it for sure. But for the first time, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign that raised $40,000. Give thanks to Think Tech. We'll run only during the month of November and you can help. Please donate what you can that Think Tech in Hawaii can continue to be public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like mine and I'm a charge. 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You know, we visited a number of installations and if you connect the dots, it starts to give you an idea about how Maui is doing and how Molokai is doing as against the larger landscape of renewables and the march to renewables in the state. So where would you say Maui County, including Molokai is or are, you know, as as compared with other islands and and the you know, the target, the goals of the state in general. Sure. Well, I mean, there's many areas to look at from an electrical generation standpoint and from the RPS, which is relates to sales by the utility. You know, Maui County is about, you know, average in that field. I believe the big island is ahead on that and producing more renewable energy. The in other areas, you know, where we're really trying to look for is is changing the economy in general, right? It's not not having such a reliance on fossil fuel. And that that big portion of that actually is in the transportation sector. And this is where Maui is actually a little head of the other islands, you know, with the JumpSmart Maui program that happened with the Japanese government government and Hitachi. That brought a lot of electric vehicles onto the island, which is now an opportunity, right for for the county to continue moving those those ideas forward. So, so, you know, I think we're all working towards the same goal. You know, coordinate with the other counties, we come up with other ideas. And at the moment, we're all going to get together at the end of November to work on our climate adaptation plan and see where we should go, what practices we should do and make sure that we're all looking at it in the same way. So it's it's perfectly clear. Yeah, I think that's great. I think it's great that you're having that program. And it's an opportunity not only to discuss climate and sustainability vis-a-vis climate, but also to compare notes on what each of the islands is doing, which each of the utility facilities is doing on those islands so that you can learn from each other and raise all the boats pretty much hopefully at the same time. So how will that play? I mean, who will be there and will they have opportunity for that discussion? And what discussion do you contemplate? Well, I would have to pull up the agenda at the moment and not very prepared for that question, but all of the counties will be there and so many of the stakeholders throughout Hawaii will also be there and it'll be facilitated. And what we're trying to get to are some goals of defining our climate action plan to come up with what are the things that we're doing with respect to the state's commitment to the portions of the Paris climate agreement? And how are we all moving in that direction? How are we counting the carbon impact of our operations? What are we doing to move transportation forward to give opportunity and transportation for clean transportation? What are we doing in energy? What are we doing from a standpoint of resiliency around the islands? How do we do planning in the future for roads? It should cover the spectrum. That's great. And ThinkTech will try to be there anyway, bring out cameras and see what's going on with all the counties getting together that way because I think it's so important. So anyway, I want to talk about public opinion for a minute. We've seen resistance to certain kinds of progress. We've seen resistance to wind sometimes. That's not the case in Oahu, though. In Oahu and Ulapalacua Maui, the local people who live in the towns around the ranch there are pretty happy about the wind facility. They support it, which is good. But how would you characterize the public opinion in, say, Maui? I'll get to Molokai in a minute. Do they support renewables? Are they behind it? Are they excited about it? Do they believe in the goal that we'll meet the goal? What sort of feedback do you get when you go out into the crowd? I think invariably I get support for the renewable energy goals. I think the community is on board with that. I think everybody realizes that we are at risk of that supply chain, the fuel supply chain that comes to the islands, whether it's a disruption in that because of a natural disaster or a geopolitical event, or the escalation or fluctuation of prices that we need to figure out how to hedge properly against. And so maybe everybody sees renewable energy as a hedge for that fuel price in the future. I think that that's where people really get on board with it. And from the idea that we're doing something that we don't have to pollute, in many cases now we're seeing where renewable energy is cheaper, not just giving you a hedge, but cheaper than the alternative or the conventional fossil fuel burning. And so technology is allowing that. And people, I believe, are embracing it, absolutely. Yeah. This is great to hear because, of course, you have to have public support to do this. And if there are emergence activist groups, they want to oppose projects. It's troublesome. And it does tend to delay things. So then we fly off to Molokai. And I didn't know what to expect in Molokai because Molokai has resisted change, resisted outside influences in many ways over the past couple of decades, really. And it seemed to me, and I was expecting that we'd see that resistance. And maybe to some extent we saw that. We interviewed Amelia from Molokai, a sustainable Molokai. And I got the name right. And she was the one who is trying to negotiate some kind of deal with Half Moon, which is trying to do that solar battery project that I mentioned. So I mean, how would you characterize the mood, if you will, the public opinion, her constituents in Molokai, are they in favor of renewables? Is the jury out? Are they resisting? What is it like there now? Well, I think for Molokai, I probably can give you the, I don't have a lot of history there, of course. But about a year and a half ago, when I first started this position, in that first week, I went over to Molokai. And this just sort of set the framework for what I see as for Molokai. And a lot of people that have money or have opportunity, want to push a certain agenda. And Molokai, I saw that there is a lot of grid defection, but I saw it in a different way, where people can't pay their bills. That's just a different form of grid defection. That, you know, we need to make sure that we pay attention to in this move forward. And so there are many people on Molokai that, you know, need to make sure that when we evolve the grid, and we're trying to make a cleaner future and a more resilient future, that we're also doing it in a way that isn't extremely expensive. So some of the resistance that I've seen in Molokai definitely is never about doing something locally. That's for sure. And I think that's wonderful. But it's definitely about wanting to manage that risk, and wanting to make sure that if their community is taking a risk, that they're also seeing that benefit. And so whether it's with Amelia or with others on Molokai, there's many different groups on Molokai that speak for their constituencies individually. They all sort of have that same feel that they definitely want to be a part of their future, and make sure that, you know, local really does mean local. Yeah. And, you know, that's constructive in general. Our conversation with her demonstrated a pretty constructive approach by her and her organization, Sustainable Molokai. Can we skip to the Big Island now? The Big Island, you know, had all kinds of troubles about geothermal back when, back in the 90s, and oh, there was lawsuits and whatnot. Now it's kind of a glass ceiling on the amount of geothermal that a geothermal venture can produce. But the fact is that there are more renewables on the grid in the Big Island than in the other islands, as I understand it. What's the public opinion like there to the extent you know about it? I don't have a lot of experience with the public opinion there, but when I do coordinate some with the county counterparts there, they all are moving in the same direction, similarly to Kauai. With respect to say geothermal, as you're mentioning, I think that aspect is just another resource that could come to the grid. And if it meets the need, and if it's environmentally acceptable, that it could be a good resource. And so that the Big Island has more of that potential, I believe, from what I've seen in like NREL mapping and studies. There is some of that value on Maui. I'm not sure that that would be what would necessarily bring us faster to 100% renewable or cheaper. What I really want to see in however we deploy things is that it's reliable at the right price and at the right time. The Big Island is definitely blazing that trail. What about Kauai? What's your take on Kauai? I mean, Kauai, you see, has been pretty effective in managing the discussion, the conversation among its members. And maybe that's an interesting point about co-ops, that its members are closer perhaps than ordinary ratepayers because they get to vote on exactly who's on the board and so forth. But what's your take on their success and the quality of their implementation in Kauai? I am being a former developer. I definitely like to see the projects that are coming online there, these solar and battery projects. For Kauai, you see to look at what is their need to define that need and then to solicit for someone to fill that, I think is a very healthy process and that they have independent power producers doing those projects, taking on that risk and accepting that risk and then delivering reliable power makes a lot of sense. And they have these projects that are very low cost. They have a significant amount of energy storage and they're doing that price, these independent power producers, on a remote island in Hawaii, which is just for me to see is phenomenal. And I think it's great that they are ahead of the game there because with that sort of contracting because they're also able to take advantage of the investment tax credits at a higher rate before they start to phase down, which is such an important part for Kauai. We all pay federal tax and we want to get some of that benefit. But if we have a roadblock or some obstacle that isn't allowing us to get that investment in our community and get our share out of that investment tax credit, we're not getting the best service out of our utility. So I think now that they are moving forward, at least on Maui and their other islands, it's good to see. I hope that those can all be sorted out, contracted and closed in time so that we get that value of that investment tax credit. It's great to be able to talk to you, Fred. Fred Redell, the energy commissioner for the county of Maui. And it's great to see the counties talking to each other and collaborating and the state moving ahead as one, which I really love to see. I only have one last question for you. What's the plan, if you can talk about it, on Maui? What makes Maui special? What is the special sauce you're moving ahead with as the energy commissioner for Maui County? Sure. Well, I think everybody does know the larger utility plan. I think that that's an exciting part that is moving forward. They do have plans for new projects, solicitations for new generation. Into 2022, we'll have by then the Kahalui power plant retired and we'll be bringing on new generation to fill that need. But beyond that, the county, of course, is looking at its operations and is trying to figure out how do we continue also being more renewable? How do we reduce our carbon impact? And so we have contracted for digester projects to actually make renewable energy at some of our facilities to use some of that energy to deal with our problems of sludge for our waste disposal, trying to come up with ways to reduce impacts into the landfill. So in a more complete way beyond just the electric utility, what the plan is for Maui is a bit of all the above. We need to find solutions in all areas and then see where those synergies exist. It's great thinking about that. It's great to have this kind of awareness and consciousness about the plan and the future of the plan and how it relates to other elements of our environment. So Fred, thank you again for the trip last Thursday. And I look forward to seeing you, if not sooner, then at the sustainability conference by the counties later on this year. Thank you so much. Fred Riddell, Energy Commissioner of Maui, Aloha.