 Bingo, four o'clock rock. Energy Wednesday. Energy Wednesday. Hawaii, the state of clean energy. With Sharon Moriwaki and me, there's truly Jay Fidel co-hosting on our energy, our flagship energy show. And with us to join us from Hawaiian Electric is Michael Cologne, and he is the director of new customer initiatives. Very important because you reach out and touch people, yeah? Yes, yes. We're hoping to expand our customer options and services to provide greater customer solutions for our customers. So you've been walking on air for the last day or so because you won this fabulous award yesterday at the Hawaii Clean Energy Day celebration. Yeah. Yeah, we're very excited. We're very grateful to have received an award. We received the Transformational Achievement and Advancing Clean Energy Award for DC fast chargers for the Hawaiian Electric companies. Sharon, you want to describe it quickly what it means and why and the significance. Yeah, we saw it out because, and it was voted on by all our members, that it was because of its customer and transportation connection, and it really is not only the range anxiety kinds of concerns and getting to condo owners who don't have access, but it really was that combination of energy efficiency throughout the system and creating a system and being the first to pull that together. And that was what the forum really saw as transformational, that you're really connecting customer and transportation needs as well as the grid and having batteries for the grid as well. Right, right. That's really being able to enable interested EV owners to have a publicly accessible resource for vehicle charging. People who live in condos may or may not have access to vehicle charging, so it's a public resource. And then also if they're concerned about driving long distances and being able to reach those long distances, we put them in strategic locations where they would be able to get their quick charge and continue on their way. So it really lowers barriers to adoption of electric vehicles. That's what we're trying to do. You know, there were two touch points. One, of course, the award, the transformational award, which the Energy Policy Forum feels is very important and what you did is very important. But the other is the fact that a good part of our program, at least a third of it was dedicated to transportation. And transportation in, you know, most substantial part is all the fossil fuel that's being used on the highways today as we speak in a million cars and some have to change public conduct to get them out of those fossil fuel cars. And you know, the obvious solution to me anyway is to use electric cars or maybe hydrogen cars. But you've got to change public attitudes. You've got to change people the way they think and live. And we have got to find lots of incentives. Well, this, and I think you should get credit for this, aside from the award, this is a tremendous incentive. This is, you know, a range anxiety incentive is worth more than the money it costs to put it in place. Right. So when you buy an electric vehicle, you're really buying, in addition to a different type of vehicle, a new fuel source. And that comes with it a lot of challenges. It's a different way of behavior. You charge at home if you can. If you can't, you charge at publicly available charging stations. But you know, there's fear and trepidation about adopting that transition. Sure is. So being able to incentivize that through, you know, a DC fast charger where people can charge really quickly or we also have time of use rates that give a discount for if you charge your vehicle during certain times of day. We view those as really good ways of incentivizing people to adopt and change their lifestyle really. There it is. This is really moving it ahead as far as I'm concerned. And so how fast, how fast does the DC charger charge? Okay, so, you've heard of level one. Level one is if you just plug into a wall socket 110 with your vehicle. There's level two. You see them at grocery stores and malls. Sometimes they're even free. That will charge, let's take a Nissan Leaf. It'll charge a Nissan Leaf about 80% full in four hours. Our DC fast charger is charged that same vehicle 80% full in about 30 minutes. That's pretty good. That's really attractive on the landscape. Question, how many more of them, you know, are on the drawing boards now and what's the timeline? Five on Oahu. There's two on the big island with one more on the way and then we have another one on Maui. We've been authorized by the PUC, the Public Utilities Commission to do up to 25 across our service territories. So with eight currently, we have a few more targeted by the end of this year, early next year for Oahu. And then we'll be looking to expand. We're trying to do it in a smart, steady way that we target the areas and the needs of the community. We're not just trying to build, you know, and really trying to make this make sense for people's needs. Yeah, remember Camel's bearing gifts. The more times you announce that you're adding incremental numbers of charges, the more people like it. So that means when you add more charges, you should come back and tell us about it. We will do that. And we'll say we just executed an agreement with Alexander Baldwin. So we will be putting one out in Waianae at the Waianae Mall. So that's good. It really gives that far reach out to the west side. It's kind of an anchor for our electric vehicles. I have a leaf. I have a leaf and we went to Holly Eva and I had range anxiety coming back. Are you having one out close to there? So there is one in Wahiwa at the Dole Plantation. That's the first one. So I would definitely go there. You can get the Dole Whip also at the same time. Okay, let's look at the picture of the award giving yesterday. Picture of award. And there's Jim Alberts of Hawaiian Electric. Oh, there's Sharon there. But that's the globe. The globe in the front, you can see them. It's beautiful. Oh, that's David Igay, isn't it? And then we have the mayor of Kivalyo. Oh my God, they're all there. They're all there. And there's Jim Alberts. Yeah, so congratulations, Michael. Good work. Thank you very much. I look forward to more from you. Thank you very much for having me on the show. I appreciate it. Aloha. Hey, Stan the Energy Man here. I know you're bored this summer. You're just sitting at home, figuring out what to do, go to the beach, spend some time with Think Tech Hawaii. Spend the time thinking about how you can contribute to Hawaii and making it a better place to live. And start watching some of the programs on Think Tech, including Stan the Energy Man. Well, you'll learn all about everything energy, especially hydrogen and transportation. So we'll see you every Friday at 12 o'clock noon, Stan the Energy Man here on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. I also have a blog of the same game at kauilucas.com where you can see all of my past shows. Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha. Aloha. This is Reg Baker with Business in Hawaii. We're a show that broadcasts every Thursday at 2 o'clock. We would love to hear from you and you can reach us in several different ways. We have a hotline that you can call in at 415-871-2474. Or you can email us at thinktechhawaii.com or you can tweet us at Think Tech H.I. Looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you on our next show. Aloha. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, offering lifelong learning from passionate hosts and fascinating guests ready to explore and explain Hawaii's place in the 21st century. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Hello, I'm Patrick Bratton. I'm a host of Global Connections. I'm also a professor at Hawaii Pacific University. And my show and some of the other things that we do is show soft the collaboration that we have between Think Tech Hawaii and Hawaii Pacific University. So I look forward to seeing you and talking with you about a lot of issues dealing with Hawaii, the United States and the world. Thank you very much. Bingo, we're back. We're here in Hawaii the State of Clean Energy, our Energy Wednesday show, Sharon Moriwaki and me here on Think Tech. And we have our main guest, our principal guest here is Sean Antonio, Energy Coordinator for the United States Department of Agriculture, also a member of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Wow, how can you live with yourself? Well, thank you for having me, Jay. Thank you, Sharon. Yo, my pleasure. This is a great opportunity for us to be able to deliver the message of REAP, Rural Energy for America program. So tell us about REAP. What is it and what do you do? Well, I have a slides to show, but in a nutshell, basically, we cover energy, if you can produce energy by means of energy efficiency, if you have energy efficiency project and you have energy production, then it can qualify for the... So it's about renewables. It's renewables. If I fit into the categories of either small business, small rural business, or agricultural business for profit either way, then I can get a grant from you as long as I have the matching funds. That is correct. If you have the 75% matching funds, of course, the project will have to be feasible. Then we can apply... So in the case of agriculture, if I want to put some renewables on my small farm and I'm spending, let's say, $50,000, then 75% of that I have to raise for matching funds, but the rest of it should be $12,000, I think. Correct. That would be from you. That is correct. And I guess disclosure, it is an award system. Yeah. So if you do get the grant, you're right. You get the 70%, you do the 75%, USDA will cover the 25% grant. So who's overall? Anybody in rural area who's either in agriculture, small agriculture or small business? Correct. So any small business agriculture that is outside of Honolulu is considered as rural. And you're headquartered in Hilo? We are in Hilo. Yeah, where God lives. Did you say croaky? Oh, croaky, croaky. Yeah, we do have croakies. Oh, that, okay. God and croaky. All right. So now what happens is they come and they have to compete and you score the applications. Yes. And then a couple times a year you have the competition and you award. And if you lose, if your scoring isn't high enough, your application automatically goes to the national competition where you have a chance to win there. That is correct. So for example, if we do have 15 applications and the state level funding can only cover 10 of them. The remaining five has, you know, an opportunity to compete in the national competition. And it doesn't stop right there. I mean, if it doesn't win the national competition, they can always apply for the next fiscal system. Yeah, so if they keep on applying and applying, they're more likely to get it at some point. But what you told me before I think is very important is that you have to wait for your grant before you can build your project. You can't build a project first and then get the grant later. That is correct. Everything has to be post-application. Everything has to be at least... And, you know, if you're serious about... Or, you know, if you apply for this one and you really want an energy project, say for example this year or the next fiscal year, I would suggest apply. Win the award. Get the award. And, you know, think about it. See if it's something that you want to do in the next two years. Everything to gain, nothing to lose. And a grant is a grant. There's nothing like a grant. You don't have to pay a grant back. You do not have to pay a grant back. That's good. That's good. Well, and also the beauty about that is if you have two years to utilize the funding. So if you... So as long as you get it then it takes... You can take a while. At least two... And then two years you have to just start building or do you have to finish your project into it? Well, you can start building. So you have two years to utilize. So if you have... You're going to have the project, say for example, six months from now or a year from now. Just have that two-year window to... You're going to pay me to the outset or progress or what? It's going to be paid after the project has been built. Okay. So after the project. So I have to come up with everything, really, if I build it. Correct. And most installers, I mean, they do put the project, put together the project. They'll wait for the 25%. They can. I'm not sure how things work on that side. That's up to me as the recipient of the grant. I can work that out with my installer. Correct. And the thing with this one also, and I just wanted, you know, of course disclosure, if you continue on with your project, if you build it without the guarantee or without the grant itself, you are at risk of... If you don't win the grant... Don't qualify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now the 75%, the matching funds, I can get that out of my own bank account. I can get that from a bank as a loan. Correct. I can get that from a state agency, maybe the State Department of Agriculture, which also gives grants. But I can't get it from another federal agency. That is correct. Yeah. So that's cool. There's lots of ways. So let's look at some of the slides you have. So that's a different program. So this, yeah, we do have two components of the program. The first one we talked about, the grant. Now we also have the loan guarantee. Well, go back to the loan for it. I mean, the grant. The grant. How much can you get? I mean, what is the maximum amount if I apply that I could get from my project? So there is... The minimum is for renewable energy. The minimum grant request would be... There's a slide there. I don't know if you can show it. There it is. So minimum grant request is $2,500 for renewable energy. And the maximum grant that you can request is $500,000. Really? Under the energy efficiency improvements, it's a little bit lower. $1,500. Maximum grant is $250,000. Wow. You know, Jay, one thing... And Sharon, one thing I wanted to stress out is a lot of applicants or even, you know, like people who has energy projects. You know, I highly suggest they start with... And it's not very popular for some weird reason. They should start with energy efficiency. And then they build their PV system. Because... They're saving money? Right. By definition. They're getting money in order to save money. Works on both ends. Correct. It's an outstanding program. I mean, I'm very motivated to have this out in the rural communities, a small business. So, like, tell us some of the projects that have gotten awards in our community that you might want to share. So, people listening, watching, can see, oh, yeah, I think that. It is real. Right. Right. It is real. So, I don't know if you can... If you have the... I think number 10. Let's see if we got... We got a bunch of slides here. There it is. I mean, this is real. I mean, it's... Well, these people are awardees in this program. This is the renewables. And again, you know, we have, you know, separated by islands, obviously, of course we have... We have Maui. We pretty much covered everything. Maui. All of the islands. Big Island. One thing that I noticed also with these applications, you know, we have a lot of people from Maui applying for it. Is this mostly solar projects, or are there other types of projects, renewable projects that have come in? Very popular is solar. We have solar projects. And I mean, this... There's another slide actually that shows what other energy source that we can fund. I think that's the fourth slide. Yeah. But I noticed from the slide just showed that they range anywhere from... I mean, in practical fact, from 10,000 to maybe 125,000. So there's a huge... Pretty good. Yeah. Some of these projects are pretty substantial. Yeah. Which is good. It captures the lower end. It captures the higher end of the spectrum. Okay. Here's the next slide. There it is. So eligible projects under energy efficiency, we have lighting. We want to replace lighting to LED HVAC. Pretty much it covers heating, cooling, ventilation. Pretty diverse. Even automated controls. It covers a lot of... Yeah. And all this is hardware, which you get to buy and enjoy, and which helps you be efficient and save money and time and all that going into the future. So it's really just as valuable to a small business or a small farm as, if not more, than renewable energy sources. And then you had a whole list on the right-hand side of all the renewable possibilities there. Correct. So what's more popular on your desk? Is it energy efficiency or is it renewable sources? It's a renewable energy. That's very popular right now. Solar. But now we have solar specifically. Now we have... Hopefully, my high hopes would be go towards on the energy efficiency. Because I think one of the... And again, statistically, one of the things that I guess is more challenging to have, to package this application together is we don't have a lot of energy auditors or energy assessors who would be able to go out. So you're friendly about it. I'm here from the government and I'm friendly about it. You know, at one point in time, and I know you have a program now, that federal grants are really hard to apply for because there's lots of paper and lots of questions and it's hard for farmers to put that kind of stuff together. Even small business people, right? They've got their hands full with their business. What have you done to help these applicants who want to apply for... That's an outstanding question actually. There is, and I guess one of my goal being an energy coordinator for USDA is to simplify everything for our potential applicants. We have a lot of collecting all the resources that I have. One is application. People shy away with the application. The other component also is, I guess, the grant writers. We have the Kohala Center over in the big island. Betsy Coles group. They will be able to... How does that work? They help write the grant. Do they get compensated by you or by the grantee? This is free of charge. Free of charge? How wonderful. That's great, really. Maybe when Betsy can talk about that. I think it's very important to understand that federal grants are not easy. The federal government has earned itself a low rating, I'm sorry to say this, in terms of friendliness on grants, because it's very hard. You want to go to grants.gov, take an aspirant. If you're not an experienced grant writer, and the other aspect is, we're talking about the outer islands, the neighbor islands. There's a lot of poverty. There's not a lot of income. There's not a lot of money. There's not a lot of business experience there. It's country. It's the old Hawaii. It's country. People don't know anything about this sort of thing. If you just say, here, make a grant. You're going to run into that. If you give them, somebody will help them write it. That changes everything. That changes everything, absolutely. Does Kohala Center help others other than on the big island, like Maui or Kauai? I would check with some of the applications that I have received are actually from Kohala, and they're very well packaged. I was actually on Maui when it was about two weeks ago, and we have other... SBDC is in fact willing and might be able to assist. Do the same thing. That would be good if you have one... This has been the barrier. This has been the obstacle. It's a real big barrier. I know there was a time way back with Tim, when he had $60 million to help me spend this money, but nobody wanted to come forward because it was so difficult to get, to write the grant and submit it and all of that. That's the thing, John. You're an unusual person. Your office is an unusual office. You exist to give money away. I mean, people must love you. For this fiscal year, they will love me. For the next fiscal year, hopefully, if I have a lot of applications, then I can only fund a certain amount of applications. But you're still giving money away, though. You're still giving money away. Well, again, the goal is renewable energy and energy efficiency if they can come up with a 75%. And it has to be feasible because you're not going to bring in 75. Right. Sure. You're not going to bring in 75. It's not feasible. No banker, in fact, facility. No bank. Yeah, no bank will finance. Yeah. Yeah, it's a 25% grant. And again, I have to... It is money that is available, but it's an award system. Under $20,000, less competitive, because it's smaller. But once you go above $20,000 or even $200,000, then that's a different threshold. So if I were applying, what is that first step? Do I need to have a bank that says, yeah, we're going to bank you, or we know that your project is going to be... I mean, how far along do I have to have this concept to know that at least I'm in the running? Actually, I have a slide. I don't know if you could find the steps to initiate an application. I think it's number 10. There it is. Magic, eh? Interesting. My first application... I'm new to the agency. My first application is kind of like what you described earlier. You take aspirin and you put in an application. Now it goes back and forth. Wrong form, wrong project, or wrong... everything was just a mess. I think this is the key. So how to apply? This is specifically for REAP. First thing I would do is check. Check if you're a small business. So you don't have to be just a farmer. I mean, as a farmer, it says not an agricultural producer. This is not for farmers, this thing. No, you can be a small farmer, or you can be a small business. And it has to be defined by SBA. So check if you are a small business, and they have a website for that. And you can't be a non-profit. It has to be for profit. Neither think-tech nor the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum will be able to apply. Sorry about that. We're in Honolulu. Oh, that too. The thing about it is, I think we have to appreciate that this happens in a place where money is more important for people. This happens in the countryside, and it's a big deal for them. It changes their whole business or agricultural activity, beginning really sometimes only a few bucks. And so there's real value in a program like this to help in our neighborhoods. Especially in Hawaii, if you have a rural energy for America program under USDA, a separate example in the mainland, their electricity there is really cheap, and they get the benefit. Of course, it's under USDA. It's much cheaper. If you have that over here in Hawaii, it's three times more valuable as far as savings. The cost of electricity being so much higher here. That is correct. And here's the best thing. The more successful applications that are filed with John, the better he is positioned to turn to Washington and say, okay, we have an active grantee market, and we need more money. The more he gives away... You don't have to agree or disagree. The more he gives away, the more he's going to get to give away. It's a kind of cycle. Well, I hope that's how it works, but I think we have a certain allocation. Unfortunately, I don't think I have control over that, but that's a good... It's wishful, anyway. Yes, it is. Okay, Sharon, let's put this in perspective. Where does this fit in the energy landscape? Where does it fit in the energy policy? Well, it's right in the center of the energy landscape, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and getting federal monies, some kind of support for that, and especially the rural communities, where we need help. And it's right in the middle of what we're doing because it's providing resources and the kind of resources that John is talking about is not only getting the money, but helping communities, helping individuals and organizations to change their behavior and be much more conscious about saving... and not using fossil fuel. Yeah, it's all about incentives, isn't it? That's what we learned yesterday, I think, at the Energy Day program. It's all about incentives. And if you want to change conduct, you really have to ante up at the governmental level and do things to either incentivize people to do the right thing or de-incentivize them to do from doing the wrong thing. John, you close. What do you want to tell the people? Tell the people on camera what. Okay, so I think USDA has the Rural Energy America program. It's a very good program and I think that people should take advantage of it, especially small business, rural small business. How can they reach you? There is a slide for that. What's the slide? Slide 10. There it is. There it is. W-W-W-S-A-M Can I read that? Is that it? Oh, that's your D-U-N-S number. There's the... Yeah, there isn't any... What's your website you're taking a look at? Where's the website? Your e-mail, or wherever they can get you. So, e-mail is John, my first name, of course, .Antonio. Got my e-mail. At hi.usda.gov hi.usda.gov That is correct. John.Antonio at hi.usda.gov That is correct. The United States Department of Agriculture is helping us here in Hawaii. Thank you so much, John. John and Tony. Thank you, Brad.