 OK, as they say, bingo. This is Think Tech, Hawaii, the state of clean energy, organized by the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. And our co-host is now in the gallery there. I see her in the distance. Sharon Moriwaki, the co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. And our co-host today is Lauren Tenonkawa. A ton of kawa. And she's here from the Elemental Accelerator. Welcome back. Thanks, Sharon. Nice to have you here. OK, don't forget, we always ask our co-hosts to make comments at the end and summarize the show. So if you want a piece of paper to write notes down, so OK. OK. She doesn't want a piece of paper to be written down. OK. And our principal guest is Sarah Kabul. And Sarah is going to talk about Pono Homes. Thank you for coming down, Sarah. Thanks for having me, Jay. Great to be here. Pono Homes is part of a cohort for Elemental Accelerator. Yes, we're on the 2016 demonstration track. Yeah, outstanding. And our immediate guest, if you will. Can I call you that? Sure. Time's up. Right. Hawaii Energy, who's going to talk about, gee whiz, a trip to the Big Island, right? A trip to the Big Island. So as you know, Jay, we serve Hawaii Maui at Honolulu Counties with the public benefits fee administrator, Hawaii Energy. And so we took a trip to the Big Island to see what our companions out there were doing. We got to meet with the mayor, Harry Kim, of Hilo. We went to Kay's Drive-In, got some good lunch, and saw their LED installation. I'll make it clear, it's all over the show. For you people in Bolivia listening, it's a very good place. Very good place. And we would tell the University of Hawaii Hilo and met some of their innovators there. I'm going to tell you more about it. But first, I want to show you a video. OK. Deal. OK. And I figured we have to let our viewers know about the leader that Hawaii Island and specifically Hilo is becoming in energy efficiency. I'm Ryan Kodota. I'm third generation, part of the Kodota family. Who owns and operates Kay's Drive-In. Our family has always been interested in conservation, also saving money. So it just seemed like a perfect opportunity to not only save a little bit of money, but become more energy efficient. Did you know that there's 11,000 street lights on the Big Island? 11,000? Yeah. And the county just replaced all of them to LEDs. It is important that we do everything we can in regards to the measurement of the whole. In regards to our small, we do everything we can to contribute to adjustment. And that's your role as mayor. The university is full of aloha, and everyone there really puts the students first. That's right. Even the folks that manage their facility. My name's Loli Chi. I'm the director of US Shiloh Facilities Planning and Construction Office. This spring, working out great. We have accumulated over $400,000 of savings. And it's really inspiring to see businesses making smart energy choices. That's what it's all about. Catch us on an all new episode next time of Hawaii Energized. OK, we're back. So tell us what that movie was all about and what it means to you, Jamie. Well, the mayor's part was a little quiet in the video. If you didn't hear it, he did say that he believes in people doing their part and doing everything they can to save energy. And even a small project, their street lighting project in just the city of Hilo in a small state of Hawaii, makes a difference. And it's what the mayor can do right now. It's actionable. And they did it. And it's measurable. And it just really fundamentally follows what he believes in each person doing his or her part. Cage Drive-In went from these old T-12 really, really old technology fluorescent lamps switched to LED tubes. And they're seeing the savings there. And then we went to UH Hilo. We met with Loli Chi. And he shared how Hawaii Energy had sponsored him to go to, I believe it was a University of California system conference a couple of years ago. And he learned about this Green Revolving Loan Fund kind of a program. And Loli brought that back and worked together with his accounting team. So this is facilities and accounting working together and collaborating created. They set up a Green Revolving Loan Fund so that any rebates would go back into this fund. And any bill savings from their lighting projects would go back into this fund. And they're now looking at their second tranche of projects self-funded by the university. So it was a neat trip all around. I got to go to the Big Island. I got to see where Mary Monarch is performing. Oh, yeah. What's your next trip? Our next trip, you have to stay tuned. You may just bring a video back from Maui. OK, OK. Marvin, you hear that? You guys have any cross-examination? Lauren, Sarah? I think that's a great segue into Sarah's piece, because they're also doing efficiency on the home side and the residential side. And we also just went to the Big Island as well. Excellent. To get out to the neighbor islands and do efficiency there. Great. So we'll talk about your trip in a minute. We're going to take a short break now. Now that Ramsey, do you get anything else on this? No. If you want to see more of our videos, stop by at HawaiiEnergy.com slash Energize. All right. See pictures of Ramsey. Yes. Thank you, Ramsey. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back with Lauren and Sarah. And also, Sharon Moriwaki will be right back. Thanks, Jay. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube, and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At dive heart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. Dive heart can help children, adults, and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search diveheart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. Aloha. I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii Is My Main Land here on Think Tech Hawaii Fridays at 3 PM Oyan Standard Time. We explore environmental issues, political issues, keeping it local any way we can. Aloha. Hey, Aloha. This is Andrew from Integrated Security Technologies. I'm here on behalf of PSA and your Cyber Security Committee. I got through Denver. I thought I'd give you a quick update on what we're doing heading into convention. I hope you all get down there in October. If you haven't gotten into Tier Zero yet and worked on that material, I encourage you to do so. But I can tell you that our committee is moving on through tiers one through five. And we've got some great new tools to help you sort of gauge yourself and help you with your policies and your implementations through tiers one and two. I'll be presenting that material down there at convention. So please come on down. And in the meantime, if there's any particular issues that you're having, feel free to send them to the committee. We've got a great group of folks working there. And if you've got some people on your team that are more interested in this, feel free to have them call us up. And maybe they can join our committee and help out a little bit. So thanks a lot. I look forward to seeing you there. Aloha. Today is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike. Excitement builds. Game plans are made with responsibility in mind. Celebrations are underway. Ready for kickoff. MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your matchday experience. If you drink, never drive. Two. Bingo. I would say that. I'm Che Fardale. This is Think Tech. And we're here in Hawaii, the state of clean energy. Where else would we be? OK, we're in phase two now of our show. Sharon Moriwaki has joined us and all is well in the world. She's co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. OK, and we have the communications lead of the elemental accelerator. Lauren Tenrona, I always mess it up. Tonokawa. Tonokawa. Repeat after me. Tonokawa. Tonokawa, that's it. So tell us what the scope of this show is. Today we're excited to have Sarah Kabul from Plano Home, who is one of the elemental accelerator companies and in our portfolio. And she's going to describe what Plano Home does and tell us a little bit about their most recent project with the public housing authority here. Wow. And this is all part of a series this month. Can you define the series? I'm so excited because we have a whole month with the elemental accelerator and seeing all of the entrepreneurs. So they are the future, so really pleased to have you on. And the others who will have come and will be coming on in the next couple of weeks as well. We'd love to see entrepreneurs in the state. We do. It's a sign of vitality, a sign of the future, a sign of the health of the economy, the generation, everything. Don't stop, not for a minute. I hope you're working late at night, yeah? Oh, yes. OK, Sarah, tell us about Plano Home. So what does it do? Sure, so Plano Home, we offer a comprehensive home efficiency service to help people lower their utility bills and live greener and healthier for life. So our technicians use our custom software on a smartphone and a 200-plus point checklist. And we audited a home for energy and water efficiency improvements, and then we make the changes right there on the spot for them. So that includes installations like LED light bulbs, high efficiency water fixtures. We do large appliance maintenance to make sure appliances are working correctly, have good indoor air quality for your home and help make them last longer, and also sustainability education, so giving them tips that they can take with them wherever they go. Is it hard for people to learn 200 points of contact in their homes? I mean, how do you do this training? Yeah, so our technicians have them on the smartphone, and they can actually email or report right after to the resident, so they can have that with them for a long time. And we also provide ongoing education as well, so monthly newsletters where we provide additional efficiency tips. We have a book that we can give lots of ongoing education to to make sure they know everything they can to help save money. So part of your service is going back again, or do they have to call you and say, hey, you know what? I don't know, something's wrong here. We leave actually educational materials behind, so we have magnets that they can put on their refrigerator, on their dishwasher, on their laundry, to get their washer or dryer, so that they can see those points every time they do their laundry. So see, oh, I should wash in cold. That'll help me save a couple of dollars per load. So like little instructions, things? Yeah, just a lot of tips that help that up. You're the chief operating officer of the company? Yeah. And Scott Cooney is the chief executive officer of the company. I remember talking with him at your accelerator a couple of years ago. You had a party. I love parties. We had a party, and I met him there, and he told me all about this company. I was very impressed with his energy, forgive the use of the word. It's very efficient in its use of the energy. Very efficiently in its use of the energy. So where does this fit in your mission, your cohort? Where does this company fit in the constellations you make for your cohorts? So we work with a number of companies across energy, water, transportation, agriculture, and cybersecurity. And within energy, there are many different fields and projects that we look at. And efficiency is one of them. And what was really interesting to us about Pono Hall is that they do the implementation piece of efficiency. So not just the audit, but also the implementation and then the education as well. And so that really solved a unique problem in the industry and in the space. And they're currently testing that model here with customers and homes and residents. How many customers do you have, how many people I've learned to 200 points in? Since starting in 2014, we've done about 2,500 homes on four islands so far in Hawaii. Ah, so Maui is the next one, or you've done Maui already? We've done some on Maui and hoping to go back and then Molokai later this summer, we hope so. Good. So now being part of a cohort of entrepreneurial companies and startups, maybe not startups, but entrepreneurial enterprises who are profit organizations. Where's the profit here? What's the business model that appeals to you and that you're using, Sarah? So our service, we have two parts for it. So we charge a labor cost and then actually charge for the products at retail price. So if someone wants to buy an LED bulb, it's the same price that they would get it out in the store. And the advantage is that we can go and just install it for them. Because studies have shown that even if people are equipped with the knowledge of what they need to do to be more efficient, that doesn't really translate into behavioral changes. So it helps to just go in and do it for them, make it convenient. Our service is very low cost, light touch, and high impact. So we just want to make it really easy for people to be empowered to be more efficient. Okay, is there a wheel to come and tell you that you're actually turning a profit? Is it happening now? Yes. Oh, okay. You're a hero on TikTok. How much is a charge, if I wanted my home and I wanted you to come into my home, what would it cost me? Separate out the cost of buying the products I need, but like a service, what would that be? So we charge $75 per hour for this service. So that includes those 200 points I was mentioning, all the appliance maintenance. Like an audit point. Yep. And then any installations that you buy, like the LED bulbs, the water fixtures, we just charge those at retail price. So usually it takes about an hour or two for a home cost average, about $150. That's pretty reasonable to get efficient. So talk about your software. So we have custom software that our founder, Scott Clooney, built that we can use on a smartphone. And some of the advantages of that is that we can give that report to the resident after so they can go through those points and remember those tips when they're thinking about efficiency. And also for property managers, we can give them updates on their homes. We do some work in military housing as well so we can provide them with those reports and then send them to maintenance too if there's any issues we want to alert them about so they can follow up quickly and fix the problem. So how would a condo operate unit by unit or just the central areas, the common areas? How do you help the condo association, for example, or is that by the property manager just for the common areas? It depends on the customer. So we've found a really good customer for us is smaller like vacation hostels or smaller property management companies that wanna do the whole thing. If sometimes there's a split between what the resident pays and what the landlord pays. So in a larger multi-family building we can go unit by unit. So it's very flexible and customizable and we can adjust the scope for anything that the property manager or resident is looking for. Who's your market? I mean, who are you? You know, talking about a broad base of possible homes and people, how do you target your customers and who are they? So our service is great in that it can be flexible for both renters and homeowners. I think we've found sometimes renters think that there isn't much they can do as far as efficiency because the first thing that usually comes to mind is solar panels or something big and expensive that they may not be able to put on their home. So we can do a lot of small changes that are low cost that help them make a difference and lower their bills. So it can work for a renter, for a homeowner. We've done work with schools, military housing as well as elderly and public housing. Is there any difference between say condo, single family unit house or schools? I mean, facilities, bigger facilities. I mean, are there any differences in how you operate? Pretty, I mean, we adjust the scope based on what's needed. But you have to save 200 points everywhere. Yeah, yeah. And it's all focused on inside the building envelope. So kind of what we think of a lot of the lower hanging fruit which you bundle it together and you can really make a big difference and save more than 10% on your utility bills each month. So now you have scholarships, don't you? I mean, where people don't have to pay, where agencies or nonprofits are offering you grant money to cover the costs that the homeowner would otherwise have to pay. So for our demonstration project with Elemental Accelerator, we've been focusing on what are called hard to reach communities. So some of the underserved communities that don't maybe have access to some of these programs. So that's included elderly housing, low income housing. And now we've been working with the Hawaii Public Housing Authority. And we're very grateful for a partnership with Elemental Accelerator and Hawaii Energy who's been providing the funding for that to help give free services to public housing residents. Perfect. So, Lauren, how are they doing? They're making an impact. I mean, the impact that they're making is actually really measurable because you can count the number of homes they go into, the number of light bulbs they change out, the number of people they interact with, as well as the number and the size of their team and the number of technicians and franchises that they're able to do. Do you have data on how much money they've saved? So we're working on the data right now with our final report for Elemental Accelerator. So check back on our website in a few months and we'll have a case study there. But the pilot program we did with the Public Housing Authority, we found the cool thing about this is it can take only about 15 minutes to do a unit and it's very low cost, average about $120 and can help residents save $300 to $400 per year. Wow, nice. Yeah, suppose I called you from my mansion down Kahala Avenue there. My big mansion on the beach. That one. And I asked you to come and do this for me. Would you do this for me? We are, definitely, yeah. Okay. But we're offering free audits right now so if anyone's interested in having their home audited. So you would give me a free order in my mansion? Yes, and then if you want to purchase some LED bulbs or other fixtures, I can get that for you, yeah. At a cost. At a cost. At a cost. Retail value. You know, it's just like being a teacher, isn't it? I mean, in a way, because you do mentor your cohorts and then the school year's over. In this case it was over, what, more than a year ago, huh? Just finishing up now. Just finishing up now, okay. And then they're gone. All your students are gone. Do you feel a sense of loss about that? They never actually leave. I mean, I see Sarah every day we work in the same office. Which is nice. Although the project may be over, they're still a part of our portfolio and we still continue to attract them. How long? Forever. Forever. You heard it here, right there, yeah. So I mean, that's really nice of you and in the sense that, you know, you probably want that, don't you, Sarah? You want to have, you know, the helpful and the friendly support of the accelerator, yeah. Yeah, it's been instrumental in our success and the great thing about the accelerator is that they really build this nice ecosystem here in Hawaii and elsewhere, not only of the companies, so they bring us out several times a year. We have an event in San Francisco and some in Honolulu to just be able to network with each other and learn best practices. Oh, the other cohorts? Yes. The members of the cohort. Yeah, class cohorts and in our own cohort. And just working with partners here in the state and really connecting us with partners that are helpful to us. That's really very important. But I want to ask about the other cohorts. So when you talk to another cohort, I remember the cohort, you know, what do you get from that? I mean, for example, say, you know, I don't know if I should get this kind of insurance or that kind of insurance. I don't know how to, you know, do my books, what kind of programize you, is that kind of thing? Just those regular business points. Is this what you meant to them about? Yeah, everything from the small day-to-day tasks all the way to the vision creation type of questions and answers that, and those are the types of discussions that happen when the companies come together. Yeah. And do they let their hair down? Of course. We do cut open. Yeah. Yeah. And I accept that. Yeah. There's a place for that for sure. And that's when we're good at cut open. We do. We don't have to be good for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so actually it becomes a kind of family. Definitely. And so it goes on through the years. Yeah. We get to know each other on personal levels as well and Sarah's story and her, the way she's here today. I see your point of home is really interesting as well. I'm actually here because of the Accelerator. I got a fellowship with the KUPU Rise program. So the first year they hired 10 fellows and paired each of us with that. And an elemental accelerator company. So I chose Pono Home. And then that fellowship turned into a job. And three years later, I'm here. So you came on a fellowship and stayed? Yep. So they're also putting students to work in clean energy jobs. Yeah, they're good. Well, that takes me to who staffs Pono Home? Who staffs that? I mean, who goes out there to these homes and takes the software or whatever it is and looks through the 200 points? Who does that? Do you train them? And who are they? Yeah, so we have three technicians here on Oahu. And it's great they have come from the communities that they're working in. So one of our technicians is a military spouse. And she's working in the military housing. Another of them grew up in Hawaiian Homeland's housing. And now he's doing efficiency work there. And we just expanded with this program with Hawaii Energy for HPHA onto the Big Island. So just hired a technician there as well. Well, these things are coming together. It's like all the people we know, they're all coming together. Isn't that nice? That's the, what do you call it, the maturation of the industry, so to speak. So what's the future for you, Sarah? So we're about 1,400 homes in on the public housing project and are going to keep working on that for the next year. And we also have a franchise opportunity. So kind of our next step is to want to empower green entrepreneurs in Hawaii and across the US to also go help people in underserved communities and people all across the nation that want to be more efficient. So we have our franchise sales open in about 38 states in the US, so we're focusing on that expansion next to us. Well, that's major. This is just what elemental would want, isn't it, a national expansion. As well as focusing more on neighbor islands, too. So Maui, Molokai, Hawaii, and trying to bring more efficiency there, too. This is your laboratory to develop the best practices and all that, because it's a new idea. And you have to refine it every day and so forth. Yeah. Oh, that's exciting. You must be somewhat excited about this, because you're a member of the program. Both those pieces are really exciting to us in terms of expanding to other communities here locally. Those that are hard to reach and those that are fairly easy to reach. As well as scaling nationally as well. And that's sort of a goal of our program and a way that we have measures. You help them go national, because it takes money to go national. Yeah, it takes money to go national. It takes relationships to go national. It takes knowing different places and different communities. The franchise model is interesting in that way, because you're working with people who are of the community to do work within their community and help their friends and family and colleagues partake in this energy efficiency and this energy movement transformation. So as you go to the neighbor islands, you're also looking for franchisees, right? Who can come and be your agents out there and then start their own businesses, which is quite exciting, isn't it? Yeah, so goal to reduce carbon emissions and help create green jobs for people and really appreciate elemental accelerator. Accelerators focus too on making energy affordable for everyone and accessing all communities. Well, let me get this now. So it's affordable. It makes energy affordable. It makes green energy. It improves the quality of the homes of everybody on the economic scale and the quality of their lives. Makes it affordable. What's exactly not, and yeah, that too. What's not to like? I can't figure anything out. That makes money. Yeah, making a profit. So you don't understand exactly what you want out of this. You know, I'm a bottom line. I'm joking, but the bottom line is that this is a community service type organization. It's a profit doing the work of a nonprofit is what it's doing, is doing community service. You must love this. Yeah, the model is very interesting. Yeah, yeah, is this the kind of model you're looking for in other companies too? Yeah, I mean, we only work with four-profit companies. Yeah, but? But almost all of them are mission oriented and aligned with our own mission as a nonprofit. And so Pono Homes' mission and ethos behind the company and the model that they use definitely aligns with ours. So where are we in the continuum, Lauren? You know, I mean, in this month, for one thing, but in the development of the Elemental Accelerator. I mean, you've done some interesting things. You've expanded. You've made a fantastic part. I'm sure you're rolling. I'd love to have you roll the text. Can I borrow your roll? Yeah. We can hack ourselves once again. Yeah. So where are you going with all of this? Because I sensed there's a national kind of emphasis these days and you're trying to be as national as you can. You want your cohorts to be national too, right? Yeah, so our mission is twofold, to help our company succeed and to help transform this place. And so in helping our company succeed, that's the scaling piece. And in transforming this place, that's where we're doing projects here and growing the economy here. I mean, folks like Pono Homes are hiring people locally to get involved in this movement and transformation. And what's next for us is we're in the process of selecting our next cohort. Exciting. Yeah. It does in new companies to add to the portfolio. And something that's really important to us is sort of tracking our progress toward those two pieces of our mission. So how are we helping our company succeed and how are we helping to transform this place? And each September, we release an impact report. And so that's something that we're working on now to be able to share everything we've done. September's right around the corner. It is right around the corner. So what's next in the course of this month? I mean, for us here on Hawaii, the state of clean energy, who are you gonna bring around? So the next show, Sarah talked about her involvement and her start at Pono Home as a fellow in the RISE program. We actually have an intern with us for this month of July. And she's 12 years old. Oh, starting young. She's at first. Yeah, she's at youngest intern. We had one 13 a couple of weeks ago. Oh my God. So I wish we had one. How are we gonna beat you now? We could have had the program. I had the whole show with him. So she'll be here next week, really diving into the opportunities for career development and workforce development and segwaying education with what's after that. Outstanding, glad you guys are a house on fire. So Sarah, I asked Lauren before what she thought of you. Now let me ask you, what do you think of her? Well, that's amazing. She's... You're ready to blush. The communications material she makes, I've always been very impressed with those. And we're just so grateful to be part of the elemental accelerator community and have learned so much from their mentorship and have helped us create such great projects with amazing partners here in Hawaii and just can't be grateful enough for their support and ongoing support. This is not your first channel. I know. It's from the heart, yeah? It is. One of the things we have in common we're actually both the part of the same internship program. Oh, yeah. I also started as an internet elemental accelerator. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That would be a new series in that Rolodex, yeah? Yeah. Very good. Sharon, why don't you summarize them close? Wow, this is exciting. This was an exciting show. I think we saw growth, internships and interns, full-fledged communication leads, and the COO of a firm. I think this is really wonderful and I really like sharing this with the public knowing what you folks do and maybe getting more good interns and good cohorts for the coming years. So, very good. Thanks for coming. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. See you next week. And Lauren, we'll see you next week. Thank you, Sarah. See you next week. Hello, Lauren. Oh, wait. I want to just plug Hawaii Energy Policy, Hawaii.edu, our Hawaii Clean Energy Day, August 28th, and we're going to have a Tesla Autonomous EVT for people to demo right around. So please, everybody, please come to Hawaii Clean Energy Day, October, August 28th. August 28th. August 28th. Thank you, Sharon. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. Great to have you guys here. Okay, loja. Loja. Loja.