 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another episode of condo insider. My name is Jane so you more I'm going to be your host for the show today. And today we're going to be talking about benchmarking utilities and the reason why we're talking about this is there was a bill that was introduced in the city council I think it was a couple of weeks ago I know it past first reading. And recently there was a second hearing on second reading. And at the time, we didn't know anything about it. And so we were kind of off guard. And so we've decided that you know we need to become involved with this because the bill is going to require condominiums and co ops to do benchmarking of water and electricity. And we're going to, we're having been Sullivan from the Honolulu office of climate control sustainability and resiliency here to explain things to us, so that we understand what's going on. Hopefully, we will be able to educate you so that if you have a concern, there's still time for you to participate in the deliberations because this bill still has is still being considered by the city council hasn't passed out yet. So, I want to welcome as my guest today Ben Sullivan, who is the energy program manager for the Honolulu office of climate control. Thank you Ben for being with us. Thank you Jane really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Yeah, thank you for coming to explain to us what this what benchmarking is all about. Can you tell us exactly you know what is your background in this area. Sure, sure. My background, as far as education is I have a bachelor's degree in environmental design from the University of Colorado. I have been working in for municipal government for over 10 years and similar roles and so I came to the city and county. About one year ago from the county of Kauai where I served in as the energy and sustainability coordinator for 10 years. And prior to that, I did some work with electric utilities KIC over on Kauai Island, as well as some building design and architecture work and basically what was a previous career before that. And so now you're with the Honolulu department of climate change. Correct the office of climate change sustainability and resiliency which is attached to the mayor's office here in the possibility. Okay, and what so what do you do in your capacity of energy program manager. So the primary guidance that I have is that from as the energy program manager is comes from a document called the city's climate action plan. The climate action plan was adopted actually about one year ago by the city council, and it provides guidance for the city as to how to proceed with both policies and programs to help our whole island to address concerns around climate change and climate change primarily a document that talks about energy policy, both with buildings and with transportation, and then also some with waste and really outline strategies for the next for the next five years but really for the long haul in terms of how we how we continue to reduce our concerns eventually down to zero. And so it's a very challenging mission that we have and it's very broad, but we basically support agencies across the city and then we also support the you know island wide efforts to achieve the goals I just outlined. You know, to today we're here to talk about benchmarking because there's a bill in the city council, and it's bill 22. It's pending before the city council, and it would require condominiums and co ops and how to make annual benchmarking reports to the city, as to their usage of water and electricity. Great question, great question. So, so just to clarify, it's not singling out condominiums and co op. It's actually all all buildings over a certain size and so it would include all commercial buildings of various different types, as well with the exclusion of industrial buildings. So it includes retail buildings include commercial buildings that include hotels as well. Benchmarking is just like what it sounds like or what you hear in business right it's performance benchmarking so. So often in business week we established performance performance metrics, and we compare ourselves to industry standards as a way to improve our performance. Benchmarking is very much the same thing so it's really saying how can we create some foundational information that allows a building in the in the area of energy and water utilities to compare itself to other similar buildings and so that you can gain valuable information about your performance. So, and since you know this is the city office of climate can change that's sponsoring or supporting this bill. Why is this information important to the city. So, the information again aligns with the directive that we have in the climate action plan so I don't know how much time you spend in the energy side of things Jane I'm definitely looking forward to learn learning more about the condo side of things but but from the energy perspective the state has very very ambitious goals and that they include trying to get to zero carbon emissions by 2045. This is this is already in state statute and so buildings represent a third of the emissions we create on the island of a walk. So, so a full one third of all the emissions you know the other two thirds are roughly coming from ground transportation and air transportation there's a little bit there from waste and those are very approximate numbers but you get the idea so so buildings are very important source of emissions that we have to try and reduce and certainly one of the ways we do that as we we create renewable energy so he goes a lot of work with solar and wind and other sources in order to avoid emissions resulting from combustion of coal or oil. But in addition to that we need to also become more efficient because as you probably know there's just not simply not enough space on the island for all those resources to supply an endless amount of energy if our energy use keeps growing. And so what the purpose of the bill is it's the purpose of the bill is to support informed decision making and building through building management, so that everyone has an opportunity to reduce the energy use and then specifically for policymakers like myself. It creates a much clearer perspective on how buildings are currently performing and where we can provide help. So whether there might be policy help or there might be financial help or other help able for buildings that are performing poorly, we were able to advocate for those changes at this at this point in time. That information is actually fairly difficult to come by which I know sounds. It sounds like it should be easy to get but it's really not. And how would this information be helpful to condos and and and coops I mean because it's not something that you know we do. Sure. So how would it help us. So that's a that is a key question and that's a great question and and I believe the way it would help you is again being able to say okay how is our building, you know, obviously co-op managers and building managers are already in many cases very energy conscious because they know it's an it's an important fixed cost or operational cost that they have to deal with and so they probably do a lot of things already to drive down their energy use. Is that is that a fair assumption. That is a fair assumption and you know with condominiums I mean we're, we're very cognizant about costs because, as you know, with condominiums of our unit owners end up, you know, having to pay for the costs of operating the building. So if anybody is out of our utilities the water and the electricity. There's really basically one main meter. And then the payments are then collected from all of the unit owners. So if anybody is using a lot of water, or running their air, air condition 24 seven, we're all paying for it. And in fact, you know, we are the buildings are working to be no more efficient because I know electrical submetering is a very popular trend and I know my building went through it. And you know, when we went through the electrical submetering. I mean because typically you have one meter for an association for a building. And so we get one HECO bill. And with with the submetering with the submetering, there are meters in every unit. And then the association is able to read and do separate buildings to all the unit owners. What happened when we did the electrical submetering and HECO did come and Hawaii energy came and you know they had a town we had a town meeting where we had the owners, you know, come and basically ask questions about this new process. And it was what we learned is that when people have to pay for their own electricity. They didn't run their air conditioner 24 seven, because they because it hit home that hey if I use this, I'm going to pay for it. And my neighbor is not going to subsidize it. And, and, and overall the electrical usage in the building went down. Absolutely right and so this is really a very much related principle and so I think, I think if we talk about just kind of zooming out for a second we talk about the evolution of metering and how buildings have been managed. As you pointed out, a lot of buildings were much more commonly master metered, you know, 1020 30 years ago, and the trend in the market today and really has been for actually several decades is individual submetering per unit. And so, as you condominium as you know, the vast, vast majority of them are submitted already at purchase and that's been the case for, like I'd say a couple of decades I don't have the exact date, but the older buildings you're correct they had to come back in and submit it retroactively and that did a lot for energy management. And that it obviously it creates awareness and it creates user decision that the what benchmarking allows us to do again is to look at the whole building performance and so because there's not a master meter anymore in many cases it's just a bunch of individual meters. We don't know how the overall building is performing as compared to it. It's reasonable comparable peers. So what I mean by that is, you might, you might as a building manager say okay I'm doing everything I can because I've replaced LED lights. And you know I've done this and that but if you don't have a way to compare that like, for example by saying, what other buildings in the city have, you know, 40 apartment units about the same size, they also have a pool or maybe they don't have a pool just similar characteristics, and how are they performing, and am I in the right ballpark am I in you know am I in the median or am I high, high energy user am I a low energy user. Without that information it's really difficult to know if there's other things you can do to improve your energy use and then it's also difficult for us as policymakers to know where the most support is needed, because we don't have a clear picture of exactly how each building is performing we just have a list, a really really really long list of meters that show how much you know how much people are using an individual unit. And so this is about creating visibility. Another aspect of the program Jane is is called the transparency component. And the transparency component is about letting the public know how building is performing overall as well so again this is this, this, this proposed program is not targeted just to residential buildings it's all building types. And then on tenant, let's say you have a renter in one of your buildings, they're able to get visibility into how the overall building is performing versus other building. And so that that information can help inform purchasing decisions and, as you know that's already effectively in place for the sale of individual units but it doesn't exist at the building level. So that's really what's behind it, you know, one of the things that some cities have done as a result of these programs is they've set up, they've set up funds to help with retrofits, especially for affordable housing. You know, not always throughout the whole market, but for housing where the people are already perhaps and on the lower side of the income scale. They'll set up additional resources that are given that are provided to those buildings, so that they can actually do do retrofit and continue to drive down those bills. So I hope that starts to explain it but there's certainly a lot more to talk about and I'm happy to continue answering some questions. And, you know, with with the condos other than, you know, the sub metering. I mean, we have replaced our lighting with LED lights. And we have. I know that we are looking at a lot of buildings are doing PV panels to, you know, make the electricity more efficient. So why aren't single family homeowners included in bill 22. That's a great question and the reason they're not included is because at some point there's a diminishing return relative to the work required to actually track the usage of the building. And it's also because at the individual homeowner level you're already getting all the information for the performance of the building so the program really target building management as opposed to individual owners. There's a whole audience to help potentially improve performance as well as policymakers and others as I described, but with a single family home that information is already readily available there's one meter to the home. The individual knows how it's performing and they have total control over those decisions and so that there's not, there's not a strong of a need for comparative benchmarking. But with a condominium to you know, it's it's not, you know, like with water with water. There, I, I, I'm not, I don't think we've come up with a way where we can do some metering of water. And you know, and, and that's a concern when you have. I know in my building, you have brumblings, when you have, you know, people who have their cousins and everybody you know you have a unit a three bedroom unit, and you have 14 people living in there. And people are yelling and screaming about water. Right. And if you're, if you're a single person, you know, living in the unit you're supporting that person's water usage. Right. And you know so so you know so there is grumbling about and there's nothing you can do about. That's right. You're correct and this program doesn't address that specific concern but I will actually give you a little anecdote from another city who implemented this. I don't know if this would ever, this would ever apply to the end of the buildings you're familiar with but I did. It was specific to water so I'll share it right now so there's a, I think I want to say it was Stan Jose who interested who initiated a benchmarking program but I could have the city wrong and I'll follow up with you. But the point of the story is anyway that this, this building manager did the benchmarking and saw looked across their portfolio of several dozen buildings and saw one that's where the water use was just absolutely out of control higher than the other building, like, like orders of magnitude more water, and they went to investigate it and they found out there was two individuals who lived in the building that were running a car wash business from the building. During during daytime hours and it just had happened to get past the building manager because they weren't there at those times. And so they were actually taking all that water and utilizing it and they were able to make the correction because they know the building manager hadn't otherwise known and obviously that's a very extreme case. But my point is that information is power and when you have better information both comparative and and historical for your use you can begin to say okay. You can you can troubleshoot right like if you're if you're building last year was was using, you know, 10,000 kilowatt hours and this year all of a sudden it's using 15,000 kilowatt hours. You can ask those questions whereas whereas if you have, you know, perhaps at the same time you had a new manager come in they maybe didn't know that it used to only use 10,000 and so they just say okay well it's efficient. We've done everything we've done what we can but they may not know that there's a piece of equipment that's failing and it's not showing any signs it just performing poorly and giving off a lot of heat right so that that that can create a lot of waste and so this is again just a tool to simplify that. One thing that I think is really important to emphasize because we we really recognize when we set up this program that we cannot burden people with additional administrative chores that are just busy work so. One of the one of the objectives we laid out when we started designing this program is we have to make it as easy as possible for building managers to comply with the benchmarking ordinance. And so I'm happy to go into more detail on that but I'm going to start by just saying the first conversations we had Jane were with the utility, and especially with HECO, because what we didn't want was right if you're trying to get all this information about your building performance. The last thing we want to do is ask someone to go out and talk to every unit owner and try to get their bills. That's a that's just a disaster. So we talked to HECO and we said, Are you able to provide aggregated data for the whole building if the building manager you know the entity that pays the common area bill approaches you for that information and they said yeah we can do that. And so we have worked through systems and we've we've actually tested it with them on city because as you know the city has some housing as well so we went through that process made sure it worked, and we're able to get aggregated data. And so the beauty of that again is it streamlines the process tremendously so there is a process to benchmarking there is a little bit of work, especially in the first year but we're doing everything we can and we will continue to do everything we can to minimize kind of the extra labor associated with with getting it done. Right and you know but the ordinance I noticed for condominiums and coops. The board of directors is responsible for the reporting. That's correct and so the board of directors has within their authority they can obviously put it to the management company to do that if they choose and it's obviously likely there'd be a fee for that. Advocacy and part of our work is to reach out to the management associations and make them aware of the resources that help streamline the process so if they have a client in the form of a board, come to them and say we need to benchmark. We want to make sure the management companies know that it can be done affordably, especially when you're in the position of the management company and you can do 25 buildings right it's a lot easier as you know to do anything 25 times. You can do it once by a bunch of different people. And so that's that's one possible route that will save a lot of time and effort as well. But certainly there's you know there's cities around the country that have been implemented benchmarking and there's plenty of best practice that we're following as well. We're making an investment in a very sophisticated customer information system and support system that will allow us to have a help desk and have history of calls and to understand what problems people are having and how we can follow up and support. So this is not just something that we're going to say please do it and then and then abandon you we're hiring an additional staff member on the team was going to be charged with the benchmarking program explicitly. We it's our intention to prove that that we can be partners on this we you know we need the results, but we can't just demand them and then walk away we intend to partner we intend to solve problems in collaboration with those who have to perform the work. I'm glad to hear that, but why can't the city get this information from the border water supply and from people. That's a great question so from the border water supply. We, you know, we can get it and and in fact we're working on streamlining that transfer of data and information as much as we can but it's again the purpose of benchmarking is not just for us to have it it's for the building manager to have that information. We want we want the we want the building that and the person who's responsible for essentially paying the utility bills to have this comparative information in front of them on the on the HECO side. We don't regulate we don't have a have jurisdictional authority over HECO and so in order in order for us to get that information it takes the building owner going to HECO asking for it which they have the right to it and then sharing it with us. That you know that's that's kind of part of how the process work. But again, as far as, as far as accessing the data it is it is, we've already made substantial efforts to streamline that process and we're going to continue to do that. All the way throughout because you know, just like everybody we you know this is the first time we're setting this up for Honolulu so there is a learning curve for us and there certainly will be for building owners. But it's but it's our intention again to just continue to work with people and to collaborate and to find ways to streamline these as an example it's our intention to have workshops that are specific to. To multi unit residential properties, sometimes both both early, you know after the bill passes just informationally but then more importantly, more technically based workshops that are kind of oriented towards helping somebody who's trying to solve that problem. There's a time prior to the bills or prior to the reporting being due so that you know the schedule as of now in the bill is has been amended so that the first reporting period for the largest buildings doesn't come due until June of 2023. So, buildings over 100,000 square feet would be due June of 2023 and then buildings over 50,000 square feet to June of 2024 and then buildings over 25,000 square feet to June 2025 and then and then annually once you have your base building entered you just have to just enter that utility which is really actually a pretty quick process once you understand how it works. So it's that first year where there's a little bit of work to enter the basic building information. And then in subsequent years it's really just about getting the 12 months of utility data for each of the utility for each of the energy and water utilities into the system. So for, for example, then for for a condominium if we if this bill passes, and it gets implemented. And in. And so, how does this work does a building manager, then contact HECO and say okay, there's this law we need for HECO to provide this information to our property manager, in Hawaii. Is that is that what happens we have to sign something and then HECO will just transfer the information over or do they give it to us and then we have to give it to our property manager. Oh, so HECO will provide the the information to whomever is already on the common area bill. I would say, for example, if Hawaii Anna is the is the is the entity that is writing the checks to HECO, then it would be Hawaii Anna who would who would request the information and then they could they could either give it to you or perform the benchmarking on your behalf. If the association is the one who's writing the checks and it would be the association that needs to reach out to HECO and that's just simply an authorization letter if, if you wanted to just give Hawaii Anna agency to get that data you could write a quick letter which HECO will have a template for and just say, we authorized Hawaii Anna to get our data for the purpose of benchmarking and then that data would be made available. Okay, and then, and then so so so our involvement are meaning, you know, an association's involvement appears to be minimal. We basically authorized HECO to release information to our property manager and they're supposed to take over and do it. So, there's a business decision for the association right so we don't want to we don't want to skim over that there is a cost to doing this work so the presumably your property manager is going to inform you of that cost so you can decide whether you want to use them, or just, you know, have some other methodology to do it I don't know what that would be. But, but that's that isn't a you know I don't want to skim over that because we recognize that's an important part of the conversation. So, so yes, the expectation would be that property management companies would provide this service to their clients in the form of HOA boards or AOAOs. And you know I have talked to, you know, one of, you know, two of them to representatives of the management companies, and, and they said well until we find out what it entails. We don't know what, but assuming we have to spend some time, we're going to charge you guys and I said okay, you have an idea what that fee will be and they said well until we find out how much time we're going to have to spend on this. We don't know but if we're going to have to spend time you will be built. And, and I will speculate here, but I will speculate that the management companies that are able to do this quickly and understand the scope of it will be able to perform the service really inexpensively and as an example. Some of the management companies that that manage proper residential properties in Hawaii already do this in other states, because they work nationally. So, so they on their staff, you know, whether it be not necessarily their Hawaii staff but on their corporate staff have knowledge about how to perform these services and the, and the programs are very, very similar because we all use the same benchmarking tool provided by the federal government through the EPA. So it's very similar and so they should they should be able to share that information but part of the outreach we're going to be doing between now and and June 2023 that first deadline is to both HOA and Association, and also to building management companies to make to make sure they can answer those questions and so certainly that's important and one of the reasons we actually delayed the implementation date was getting once we understood better that hey, you know this has to be in a budget so you got it. The implementation has to be available by September, October at the latest so this can get into the budget process and then the following year that funding is available and and can be executed even if it's just a small amount right we can't just, we can't just left it off and say well figure it out it's got to be in the budget and so, so that that's one of the reasons that the we push back the date, and it's also the reason we'll be doing extensive outreach, you know again like I said to clarify. But but there's you know right now the conversation is about that how the bill functions or how the program functions and then once on passage it will be about providing more information so people can learn and you know at the at the level of management and those that are most. I guess most have the most touch points and then disseminate that information as well as finally at the at the level of those performing the task will will be providing actually like hands on technical training. And also help and support so you can you know you can already read today about what it takes and so a proactive company if they have the time and resources can do the investigation now and learn okay what is it going to take us to do this and be prepared. But we understand that people don't always have time to be proactive so there's there's trainings online. And then we are going to have, like I said, the, you know the opportunity and the format is still being worked out but likely workshops, where you just show up as a building manager you say okay, I'm trying to perform these tasks I managed, you know, 10 building. Here's my 10 buildings here's what I've, here's where I'm stuck can you help me with X problem or why problem I can't find the exact square footage of my building or I don't know how to answer this question it's asking me about water usage right. I have a ton of questions to input in the system but they're, they're new to people and so we recognize that we have to be there to help them answer the questions or else it's just a disaster. Yes, and then you know we're running out of time. There's two things I want to raise. Number one, is there a website where people can go to get more information. Yes, so I will again share the link it's not a very easy to read link but we have an FAQ document on our website. It's one of the, should I put it in the chat and then perhaps you guys can post it is that possible. Or you can just read and read it out while while while. Okay, I'll do that. So it's www.resilient a Wahoo backslash backslash hnl all caps face benchmarking face FAQ dot PDF. Again, it's a mouthful so and and if you send it to me in the chat, I will make sure we circulate it. And I also wanted to let you know, and I sent this to you in an email. There are certain groups that you should probably, you know, get in touch with, and that's murmur murmurs a big group. You know, it started off with just more easy easy resident managers, but now I mean they get like 100 guys out, you know, guys and gals, when they do their luncheon. And you know you should, you know, contact them and and and and try to try to be at one of their meetings, because you're going to have a lot of people there. And these are the guys who interact with the boards, right, the resident managers. Very, very helpful. Thank you. And, and, and I run an arm. And I am part of iran so if you contact iran, you know, I think that's that's a resource on those are the guys, you know, who, who work with the board because the board is, you know, they're volunteers, and they rely on their resident managers and their property managers and the it's just to keep them informed on what's happening. And that's why we were, we felt kind of blindsided when I got this email one day from Carol Fukunaga, did you know about this. Right. It was like, my God, I know about this. And I want to own that Jane and take responsibility and apologize to we did reach out to iron and about February but apparently it didn't get back to everybody and so we know we didn't know. I mean, again, this is on us, but we didn't reach every single group and so my apologies because it is very important that you have that information. So thank you for the additional contact. And we're going to continue to outreach. You know, we did reach out to Boma and CA I filled just just a little while ago feel near me. I'm going to talk to the Hawaiian Hawaiian properties while you're on a touchstone, CBR e on the commercial side, Kamehameha schools, a lot of outreach but obviously it's never enough and so, again, my apologies and thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to share information. And we look forward to partnering. Thank you for being on on condo insider today because, you know, this was like, like I said, you know, when I got that email from careful conaga, I really felt like we were being blindsided, you know, because nobody had mentioned it. And, you know, when I was asking around I was like, no, we, you know, we haven't heard. And so, you know, so thank you very much for being on our show. And, and we will try to get the word out. And if you could contact these others to help you with, you know, getting the message out. I think that will be helpful. And thank you so much for being on our show today to tell us about what benchmarking is all about. Because I think it's, it's something that's, that's going to happen. And we appreciate the office of climate change agreeing to our request to put off implementation to 2023. We really appreciate the extra time. And thank you so much for appearing on our show and for our viewers, spread the word. And share the kind of insider insider show with your friends and colleagues because this is coming. And if you have a concern, you know, show up at the city council meeting because there's still a third third reading there's a committee meeting still on this bill, and it hasn't been adopted so And have a concern. Now's the time to speak up. And thank you for joining us for this episode of condom insider, and please join us next week for another episode of condom insider for people who live and work in condominiums. Thank you very much Mahalo and Aloha. Mahalo. Mahalo.