 ThinkTec Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. I'm an energy man here in ThinkTec Hawaii, where we try and keep the community up to speed on all things energy. I'd like to start off today, though, and it is energy-related, talking about a special day here in Hawaii that we don't celebrate, but we always commemorate, and that's December 7th. It's kind of ironic that when you look at the condition that we're in today with fossil fuels and being dependent on fossil fuels, we forget the real cost of fossil fuel dependence, and that includes going to war over it. And I think today being December 7th, it's good to remember that maybe one of the bigger benefits of, besides just carbon emissions, getting off fossil fuels is keeping stupid wars from happening, so that's just my commentary for today. I'd also like to put out a big shout out and thanks to Greg Barber and the folks at Nauha on the Big Island. We had a great energy storage conference over there the last two days. The Nauha guys and girls were great hosts. It was well-run. The Sheraton over there was a great venue. Terrific. I mean, absolutely. Probably some of the best presentations I've heard from the National Lab folks and from folks that have been involved in energy here in Hawaii and on the mainland for many, many years. And we had some great discussions on every kind of battery you could think of and of course being that my friends and I were there representing hydrogen. We also had to talk about hydrogen as energy storage and that went over really well. So thanks again to the folks at the Big Island for being such great hosts and letting us have a really good in-depth look at energy storage because it's becoming more and more important as we get more and more renewables on the grid and as we try and really change our entire electrical system into not only absorbing a transportation sector but just switching to green power and clean power and carbon-free power. So anyway, today on today's show we're going to talk about something a little bit different. It was touched on in the conference, so it was just that we had several folks from the PUC. In fact, the new chair of the PUC was there, made a great presentation during our lunch break on the first day. And that's some great discussions about the government's role in changing the energy parameters. And of course, why is on the map for having a renewable portfolio standard of 100 percent clean grid by 2045? So our guest today is Ralph DeNola from New Building Industries. And they specialize in consulting and helping stakeholders and decision makers and policy makers on how to make that move. So Ralph, welcome to the show. I appreciate it. Calling in from Oak and Broadway there in Portland looks pretty nice back there. Not exactly a sunny day, but pretty bright. Looks pretty good out there. Pretty bright, pretty cold. Thanks, Dan. Thanks for having me on the show. How cold is it? It's probably, I don't know, probably in the low 40s. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely not slipper weather. So thanks for being there. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about, tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in doing what you're doing and then maybe a little bit about your organization? Sure. Yeah. So I've been working in the building industry I think for about 25 years now. I started out in, I started my undergraduate education in architecture and historic preservation. And so I've got a real interest in existing and historic buildings. And then I really started focusing my career on green building. So I'm bringing together preservation and green building and I actually worked as a principal and a consultancy on green building for about 14 years. And from that work, and I actually did quite a bit of work in Hawaii, but from that work transition to this organization, New Buildings Institute. We are here based in, in Portland, Oregon, we're a national non-profit and our focus is on advancing zero energy in terms of zero energy leadership and market development. We research best practices and building efficiency and we develop design guidance and we also work to advance energy codes. And actually the energy code work was really the basis of the founding of this organization more than 20 years ago. And so we've been at the, I think at the heart of a lot of advancing codes nationally in the US and actually helped to develop in partnership with another consultancy, Fiji's first energy code. So we've got some experience in tropical codes and then national model codes and then working with states and cities on coded advancement as well. Okay, yeah, I first met Ralph over here coincidentally in Kona again at another event called the Buy Green, Build Green, Hawaii. And he gave us a great presentation, one of the keynote presentations at that event. And so we've got some of his slides here and we're basically going to run through the slides and they're focused on Hawaii, but they're applicable to a lot of different municipalities and states. So what I'm going to do is pull up the first slide and it starts off with something that Hawaii's pretty well set the mark for among states in the US. And that is, we're the first state with 100% renewable portfolio standard, meaning by 2045 we expect to be completely green on the grid. So Ralph, I've got your first slide up, so why don't you talk a little bit to that? Sure, I would just say, as I did at the conference that I was participating in and I would say it here, great leadership from Hawaii in terms of adopting the 100% RPS and actually making tremendous progress. And I think a lot of this stems from some of the PUC's requirements that came down back in 2014, but really pushing to advance the adoption of renewable energy, the integration of renewables into the grid and it's sort of an energy infrastructure and working with the utility leadership to make that happen in a streamlined way. So I'd say having achieved about 27% penetration of renewables is a tremendous step in the right direction. And we know that some of the counties, some of the islands are upwards of 50% penetration. And I think that what's interesting is starting the presentation with this and then kind of ending the discussion around the challenge and opportunity of integrating that much renewable. So we'll talk about that a bit too. Okay, yeah, so we can go to the next slide too. And that's the one that's Hawaii Power Sector Emissions on the decline. Yeah, and I think that this is good news. And when I originally got this slide, I think the Y-axis was a little bit expanded and so it looked like a greater decline. The big takeaway from this graph is that Hawaii's been working very hard to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector, but you haven't really significantly been the curve yet. And so you've made these first steps, but in order to achieve the climate goals that we have, we have to make much more progress and really bend that curve down. So I think this is telling that there's progress, but there's really a lot of work to do, right? And I think we can go to the next slide. This slide ends up in 2015. So you have any kind of trend things towards 2018 that you have insight on? I mean, I would assume that the emissions are starting to bend down because I think what's happening is that as you start to integrate more renewables, you still have the challenge of needing to generate power when there isn't the wind or sun resource. And so that's where some of those emissions are coming from. So I'm assuming as you get more and more renewables penetration and maybe adoption of energy storage, the emissions will really start to reduce. OK. And the next slide coming up is actually a great graphic from Hawaii. And it's a story behind that one. Well, I mean, I just would say that I think this is coming full circle for Hawaii. You know, it wasn't that long ago that basically all energy was renewable in Hawaii and there was self-sufficiency from a sustainability perspective. So I think this is kind of an idealized view, but thinking about the fact that the people of Hawaii have been here before and we can work towards that 100 percent renewable energy economy and sustainable economy. So I think that's why I like to use this image. And I think you're right. And our previous guests have pointed out that even though we have a lot more energy requirements today in terms of electrical power than they did 500 years ago in Hawaii, we actually have the resources, the renewable resources to provide all that electrical power organically. Here in the state, we don't have to be importing fossil fuel to get to the point and still be sustainable. So I think you're really right. And I try and encourage all our folks to take a look backwards, just like you did in that graphic and say, hey, you know, we did it before. And people in Hawaii are very ingenious about, you know, meeting a goal and keeping things as close to nature as you can. And I think that we should be looking at that as an example for the future. Yeah. And I would just say that, you know, you are in a fairly ideal situation in terms of, you know, you are remote from those resources, but you have abundance of natural energy opportunities and also really very pleasant climate to work with. So I think the conditions are pretty ideal. Hawaiians have a very low per capita energy consumption as it is. So I think the conditions are right for you to actually be successful at achieving these goals rapidly. Right. Well, we'll throw out the next slide, which is actually one of my favorite, says surfboards on it. But this is kind of your lead into your plan for Hawaii, at least your vision for Hawaii in terms of steps moving forward. And then we can go right to the next slide, too. Yeah. And so, yeah, so that, you know, five strategies, I think, you know, it's nice to keep things in simple buckets. And so I propose these kind of five approaches. One, certainly advancing energy codes to zero. It's great to see the progress in Hawaii, and you've now adopted the 20, 15 INCC and the counties are adopting that, and that's going to go, you know, into effect. So advancing energy codes is, again, the single most, you know, effective thing we could do. And it's great to advance with the national model codes, but what can you do to move beyond that? So the next slide, slide 11, you know, shows that the magnitude of impact of energy codes outweighs many other strategies that we can do. The following slide is just conceptually, you know, how we progress. Actually, we got one slide ahead of you, Ralph. Can we back up one, Robert? There we go. Sure. Okay, now we're moving energy. Number 12? Yeah, we're on the moving energy codes forward, a guide to cities and states. Right, yeah. So the diagram on the right is just showing kind of the magnitude of impact of energy codes among other strategies. The following slide, you know, is showing kind of diagrammatically how we work to reduce energy use through codes and basically reducing regulated energy votes, right? So the codes don't regulate all building energy, they regulate just those energy uses that are under code regulation. So there's a significant challenge of dealing with unregulated loads like plug and equipment loads. And we're working to address those too. We're actually working on guidance on plug loads now, but when you reduce the regulated loads dramatically and add renewables, you can then get to zero. So that's, you know, and we know that this is possible. We see evidence of that with a lot of buildings that we're tracking. So that's diagrammatically how to think about it. And, you know, Hawaii can do this by adopting voluntary stretch codes and using the existing incentive structure to have people start to use those codes and that actually primes the market for advancing codes. And so that's definitely one of our core strategies is to move codes forward. The next slide, strategy number two is to really focus on getting to zero with buildings. And at MBI, we've been tracking zero energy buildings since 2012 and we've been producing this status report. You see the 2018 version of the status report every two years. And what we've seen is great progress, a 700% growth rate in zero energy buildings nationally. You know, over the time we've been tracking it. And so we now have about 530 buildings we're tracking. We're actually trying to build more into our list. So we actually have a call for projects trying to track down those projects and then add them to our registry. So, you know, so again, the trend is we know this is possible. There is this tremendous growth of zero energy buildings. The next slide shows that the growth rate is actually trending up in private sector buildings, which is a really good sign. And this is kind of similar to what happened with lead. You know, first it was kind of public sector adoption and now, you know, like lead, we're moving into private sector adoption. And so again, the evidence is strong that we can build zero energy buildings today. And this does, it also ties back to energy code. And I would just say when you have codes that are not as stringent, it is harder to get to zero because you have to go beyond code, right? To advance the performance of those buildings. But in this, you know, Hawaiian tropical climate zone, there are many strategies that can be deployed. So, we think that this is a great strategy for Hawaii. The next slide shows from our list, the projects that we're aware of that are either verified as zero energy or what we call emerging. The ones that have a goal to get to zero but have not yet gotten to zero. So what we're, and anyone who's listening to this show, you know, if you have a project that is pursuing zero energy, but it's not on the list, please let us know. And, you know, we have contact information at the end of the show here. Thank you. That's great to point out, Ralph, because I actually added a few that I hope we see on your list here pretty soon because we've been working on a couple out here. And like I say, Hawaii's always trying to be out in front of the herd and getting things done. We're gonna take a quick break here for 60 seconds and bring in some other show hosts to talk about their shows and we'll be back with Ralph in about 60 seconds. Aloha. This is Winston Welch. I am your host of Out and About where every other week, Mondays at three, we explore a variety of topics in our city, state, nation and world and events, organizations, the people that fuel them. It's a really interesting show. We welcome you to tune in and we welcome your suggestions for shows. You got a lot of them out there and we have an awesome studio here where we can get your ideas out as well. So I look forward to you tuning in every other week where we've got some great guests and great topics. You're gonna learn a lot. You're gonna come away inspired like I do. So I'll see you every other week here at three o'clock on Monday afternoon. Aloha. Hey, Aloha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Security Matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe, your coworkers safe, your family safe, to keep our community safe. We wanna teach you about those things in our industry that may be a little outside of your experience. So please join me because security matters. Aloha. Hey, welcome back to Stand Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii, Stan Osserman with the Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies but we're not talking about transportation. We're not even talking about hydrogen today. We're talking about buildings and how to make them more efficient. How to have the building code system accelerate how we get there. And we're talking to Ralph from Portland and his organization, the New Building Institute, New Buildings Institute where they help municipalities and other stakeholders develop good policies and help codes come up to speed to do things. So we left off with a slide that showed us some of the buildings here in Hawaii that he's already captured in his system and he's encouraging folks if you're out there and don't see your building up there but it's a Leeds goal or Leeds Platinum or Leeds Silver or you've just done some real good net zero work on your building and efficiency in updating a building or you've got new construction going on and you're planning to be net zero. Make sure you contact Ralph. His contact information is at least the websites on the slide and we'll make sure we get just his contact information to you. Back to you, Ralph. We're back on that slide again, so. Great, yeah, and I would just reiterate. We know that we're capturing a certain number of projects. We believe that we're not capturing a whole bunch. So the more we can get contribution from people adding them to our registry, the better. So again, there's this open call. We're gonna be coming up with a new list and we'd love to have your project recognized. Moving on to the next slide, I think the third strategy is this focus on decarbonization of buildings. And the reality is in Hawaii, there's not a lot of fossil fuel combustion in buildings. There is some propane and natural gas infrastructure, but this strategy of decarbonizing buildings is a key component of what needs to happen. So, and I think the important piece here, maybe moving to the next slide is, yes, we're talking about buildings, but we are also talking about transportation and we're talking about electrification of the transportation system. And this is a really important move. I think I recognize that energy prices or energy cost in Hawaii is pretty high, but moving the transportation sector to electrification is key. I just saw a news item this week that Volkswagen basically has said their next generation of vehicles will be their last generation of internal combustion engines, right? So the auto industry is moving toward electrification. We're working on decarbonizing the grid and that's your whole RPS approach. And then we're looking to electrify buildings and basically eliminate the use of fossil fuels in buildings. And so that's kind of this three-prong strategy that Southern California Edison is pushing for. And we see a large trend happening nationally around decarbonization. You make an important point there that, if you have a great electric car, a Tesla or a Leaf or any of the Toyota cars that are plugged in, they're great cars, but if you're plugging into a fossil fuel grid, you're really an oil burner or a coal burner. So we really do need to focus on as a holistic approach, the grid and the transportation more as a combined asset, not separate entities. And again, the transportation sector only little pieces of it are PUC controlled. And if we really want to make an impact, we have to make an impact on the larger grid structure. That's right. And that's where I think buildings are really at the nexus of managing all this, right? So energy storage, electric vehicles and the connection to the grid is all happening at the building scale. And so that's how we have to be thinking about this. And then let's move on to the next slide because I think this is clearly an important piece for Hawaii, which is a focus on existing buildings. And so the reality is, we have a replacement rate of buildings of about one to 2% a year. So that means that 99, 98% of the building stock is in place and most of that will be in place for a long time. So a focus on existing buildings is really important and having a strategy because energy codes are really focused on new construction. And we are moving towards more of an outcome-based performance approach and how you operate your building. So once a building goes into operations, how do you maintain the designed energy performance? But existing buildings are a real opportunity. So you were asking, Stan, what do we do to move forward now? And certainly municipal buildings is a great place to start. So state and city and county buildings are an area of focus for us. And we've been looking at assessing, so benchmarking, assessing and prioritizing these public buildings for deep retrofit and retrocommissioning. And that's a strategy that can happen today. And this is basically leading by example approach where the municipal leadership, the state leadership can really demonstrate and walk the talk and show what they can do with their existing buildings. So that's something we're really pushing for. And we're doing that in many cities and with states across the country. So let's keep moving. So this next slide really just shows that a majority of the opportunity for energy savings really resides, especially in residential and existing homes. And so that's where we should be focusing. The next slide, what we're starting to talk about, and I mentioned this earlier, is we're not just thinking about energy efficiency in buildings, but we're really thinking about the complementary elements of efficiency and adding renewables and storage and then how you control that. And so that strategy is really a focus on how we manage the utility grid and the building integration with the utility grid. And often designers, architects, engineers are not necessarily thinking about how their building uses energy and when it uses energy. And this is becoming a more critical component. And this is with the 20, 30, 40, 50% penetration of renewables in Hawaii, buildings can really serve as a resource to balance the grid. And so that's what we're thinking about. So the next slide shows what it looks like and how the utility grid operates where there's a peak of energy use in the morning and then as renewables come online, there's this belly or valley and then there's this big ramp up in the evening. And this is Hawaii's curve. If you look at the next slide, in California it's called the duck curve. We were calling it the nanny curve, but it's this shape which we're trying to deal with which is this, how do we flatten out the belly and that ramp rate in the evening and try and have a more uniform energy profile. And this is what actually helps to decarbonize the grid as well. So if you go to the next slide, this is from the California Energy Commission and you can see basically the carbon intensity of the grid and when it's better to use energy and when it's worse from a carbon intensity perspective. And we see that the grid over time in California will become more and more green. So over the years as they move toward their renewable portfolio standard and they decarbonize the grid, time of use is important and it gets better and better as time goes on. The next slide, NBI has launched the grid optimal initiative and we've been working with stakeholders to advance an initiative around a metric for buildings that measures how grid friendly they are. This doesn't currently exist and we believe that it's gonna be important next step in rating building's performance and showing their capability of responding to the signals from the grid for when to use energy and then when to supply renewables onto the grid. So this is something that we think would be really beneficial in Hawaii. And so what that looks like if you look at the next slide is we wanna try and flatten the load curve and we wanna shift the load curve and try and institute measures that give the building much more flexibility so that it can operate effectively and be managed on the grid. So that the next slide- Can you give us some examples? Some examples in the last slide about how you'd actually do other kind of PUC policies and things that you're looking for like time of use or what drives those shifts? Well, those shifts can be driven basically by good design practices and the simple strategy right now has been demand response where basically utility can call on a building to shed load when it needs to reduce load and if they don't, they're gonna be paying peak demand charges and that's a very expensive proposition for building on earth. So this already exists in terms of demand response but we know that there are other measures and strategies. So the next slide I think goes through those well where we think about what we can do is kind of permanent efficiency strategies. So what can you build in like passive design strategies and good weatherization, things like that. And then what are the strategies for shifting the peak? So that would be things like battery storage, EVs, phase change material, night flushing or night cooling of buildings and then the dynamic response, those are things where equipment can be called on and the building will respond dynamically and then dispatchable is where that building, the equipment is actually controlled and that's similar demand response but having a much more kind of integrated set of strategies. And so we're right now modeling this for buildings and we're determining which measures provide how much of the kind of the bandwidth for that building to be flexible and reduce loads and shift loads. Great. Well, I tell you what, we blew it around, we blasted through 30 minutes already. And I know we haven't gone to your last slide yet but can you give us maybe 30 seconds of how you'd wanna wrap all this together and we'll have you back definitely on another show and we'll get into more detail. Well, sure. Yeah, I mean, maybe you could go to the slide 30 with the resources and I would just say, New Buildings Institute, we're a 501C3 non-profit and we're really, our goal, our mission is to advance energy efficiency and really bring about market transformation and toward low energy buildings and now more towards the zero emissions building. So we have a lot of resources and we are happy to provide support to governments and to firms that are interested in moving these kinds of strategies and policies forward and Stan, thank you again for the opportunity to be on the show and we'd love to come back. Well, thank you Ralph and we hope that the folks out there that are watching, if they have interest in what you're doing and I hope they do, this is, it was a really impressive presentation you gave us out here in Hawaii and we'll have you back on the show later and we'll talk more about this but for now we have to say hello to you and we're gonna sign off until next week. So until next Friday, Allah.