 And welcome to Stand the Energy Man on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Rachel James, the energy woman. Today we're excited to talk about transitioning from old frameworks and infrastructure to new models and technologies in the context of renewable energy adoption. As many of you know, Kauai Island is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian islands and it is the location that can boast being the first major solar plus storage project for Tesla since its $2.6 billion acquisition of Solar City last year. As the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative moves boldly toward its goal of 50% RPS by 2023, its successes impact the statewide mandate of a 100% renewable RPS by 2045. So how does the oldest aisle transition to some of the newest technologies and adoption mechanisms available? Lucky for us and through the magic of Skype, Ben Sullivan, Kauai County's Energy Sustainability Coordinator has joined us today to enlighten us on how this energy transition has happened and is happening as informed by his efforts and observations through his work on the garden aisle. Welcome, Ben. Thank you, Rachel. It's great to be on the call. Outstanding. So as we get into the nitty-gritty of things, I wanted to start with just a brief perhaps overview of who you are and what you do for the County of Kauai. Sure. Ben Sullivan, Energy and Sustainability Coordinator for the County of Kauai. I work out of the Office of Economic Development, and I work on a variety of things for the County. Primarily, I work on operational energy savings, so both within the fleet and also within our electricity use is a big responsibility. I also work on sustainability initiatives within operations, so things like having composting at facilities and working with, you know, both solid waste offices and public works and others around the County and really just trying to increase collaboration on all these things that as we're learning and we're moving forward in energy and sustainability, we're all realizing how much more collaboration all these efforts need. So maybe collaborator in chief or instigator in chief is sometimes what I call myself. It's always about trying to change things. Wow. And the funny thing is, so we've met and we've seen one another at a number of things, but I hadn't really realized just how many things were under your hat. So instigator, collaborator, coordinator, I think you could probably use a number of those terms and still miss out on a few of the things that you do. I got a great job and I work with great people, so I'm very fortunate. Fun every day then. Yep. So as we talk about this transition in energy specifically, I know that there's some big bull things happening in Kauai. Kauai often stands out as the only utility that is a cooperative. So you can kind of talk about KIUC and what that means for the ratepayers and how that differs for what happens for the rest of the islands with the HECO companies. Sure. Sure. So I think, you know, you hit it on the head, so they're cooperative and really what that means is there are no ratepayers. Everyone that uses electricity and chooses to be a member of the cooperative actually owns a piece of it. And so the way that they're represented or their interests are represented as owners is they have an elected board of directors that speak for their interests and give direction to the cooperative CEO. And so truly the directions, the strategic, big picture, long-term direction of the co-op is set by the board of directors. That board is put in place by the membership, which is everybody who uses electricity around the island. And it's done on an equal basis person for person as opposed to on the basis of how much electricity somebody uses. So it's a very democratic system. And, you know, I think we've got it working really well. We're really lucky to have the opportunity to have that structure. So as we move to renewable energy across the state, a lot of the times, even in the interactions that we've had, we see a lot of information and kind of community capacity building and trying to make sure that different players have the right information because we're recognizing more and more that this movement toward 100% is really going to take a collaborative effort from a lot of different sectors. And so with the individuals on Kauai being owners and members, I'm curious what type of outreach and education is taking place on the island if you were there for the transition into a cooperative? So I was actually fortunate to serve on the board of directors for KAUC. I believe it was from 2009 to 2012, so a three-year term, and got some background and experience. They became a cooperative in 2003 in Statute and by name. And I think it was a really fairly lengthy and involved process for everybody, for the community and for the employees and the CEO and the board at the co-op to really understand what that meant. So, you know, you don't transition overnight. It was previously an investor on utility. And I think, you know, I want to say one thing, which is that I think the grass is always greener on the other side of the street or perhaps the other side of the state. And so I'll say that, you know, it's not all sunshine and roses. We still have, you know, KAUC still has a huge job to operate utility and many of the same challenges and responsibilities associated with HCI companies around the state. So it's not always easy. And I think sometimes people think that because we're cooperative it is. But yes, there's a lot of great collaboration. Really briefly, one great example is between the county and PIUC. So, Marica Vallejo and David Bissell in 2013 signed a memorandum of understanding that really laid out how important it was for us to collaborate. And our whole approach to working with the utility over here is really figuring out how can we help them, how can they help us. And you know, I will candidly say I think they help us a little more than we help them because they just do such great work. But we're always there and we're always listening and talking to each other. Mayor is just an incredible person as far as, you know, that's one of his as many skills is getting people to talk to each other and getting people to understand each other and their perspectives. And so, you know, my having had background at the utility and then coming over to the county also helps. And really the wonderful staff they have over there and their desire to help the membership is driving what's all the good things that are happening over here. That's standing. So I know one of the things that at least is coming up for you all as far as offering information about the energy transition and just kind of what's out there both in transportation as well as utility energy. Is the conference you have coming up in June? Is that right? That is correct. We're very excited. So is this my chance to tell you guys a little more about it? This is one of the many. All right. So we are super excited. Kauai Economic Development Board is organizing our first conference island-wide in quite a while. And so the Kauai Energy Conference is happening on June 19 at the Kauai Marriott, which is conveniently like a three-minute drive from the airport. So if people want to island hop over here and join us on the 19th, it'll go from 9 to 3.30 with a little pahana afterwards. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be very informative. We have awesome speakers. We have a three-track conference that's going to have a track on energy savings, a track on clean transportation, and a track on our low-carbon future, the latter of which is the one I'm probably the most excited about personally. But I think it's all going to be great. So we welcome your listeners to get on to the Kauai Economic Development Board website, which the URL I don't have memorized, but it's pretty easy to search, and hit the registration for that and make it on over here to the garden now. Awesome. That sounds like a really robust conference. That carbon piece is coming in. Often we hear that as that overarching kind of umbrella that so much of the work that we do falls under. And I think a lot of different folks have articulated that in a variety of ways. But a lot of the work that we do in Hawaii, we're not able to couch it under that federal umbrella because we have such clean skies here. But I'm glad to see that you guys are looking toward a carbon-free future. Yeah, absolutely. I think we all are, and we all have to be in. Most people realize that, a matter of engaging on the discussion and trying to understand from a visionary standpoint, what does that mean, and then working backwards into the nuts and bolts of it. And that's the conversation we hope to have in part at the Energy Conference in June. Nice. So if we can do a little war-hop and kind of all over the place here, but we talked a little bit about just kind of how, Kauai is unique and why, and some of the things and the struggles and the benefits. But this big, bold thing that you guys are first in is pretty phenomenal. I wonder if you could just talk about how something like that comes to be. And obviously, some folks who know Energy well can recognize just the very practical reasons why Kauai is an ideal place for this. But if you could just talk about community engagement and information and how the county works with KIC and just kind of how that collaborative process came together to yield this really monumental establishment. So I want to just open by saying 110% of the success on that project goes to KIC and their senior staff and their CEO and their board. Not just the senior staff, everybody over there just did an amazing job. So we played a small role and we were really happy to be able to help them do this. I think it's fairly obvious that you can imagine that we all saw it as a huge win. I think what's interesting to talk about is maybe the evolution to getting there. Because again, the county's role was fairly small and making that happen, certainly we had to be careful to help permitting and all that kind of stuff and to make sure the players were stayed at the table and the incentives were aligned. But I think more than that it's just understanding that I think we probably had a very maybe a typical relationship with our utility. I think around the country you can look at utilities and municipalities or local governments that have a little bit more of an adversarial relationship with the utility and it makes it that much harder for everyone to make progress because you're locked up in public utility commission dockets or you're engaged in really heavy duty debate about we should go this way and we should go that way and I think that over the last few years over here we've had a lot less friction. Again, that idea that what do you need to do, how can we help you and often there's not a lot we can do because a project like that took some really intense engineering and some really innovative contracting which we had nothing to do with. KAEC was the one who managed that so again all the credit goes there but I think you get to the point where you can do that kind of stuff and where you can innovate and where you can and where you have the full support of your community is something that we can all be proud of here on the guard now. You mentioned something that comes up often and I'm just going to see how far we can dig into this so permitting particularly as we work to adopt technologies that haven't really been investigated we find a lot of head butting as we run up against how to permit these adopting new technologies and so I'm curious if you could speak from your perspective working with your team at the county what that evolution is look like and getting more information about new technologies understanding how they play into existing permitting regulations the creation of new ones if needed you can kind of elaborate on what that process is like. You know I'm not sure that I can I will really say that again I work on a broader level and the planning department would certainly be able to answer some of that but I know that they for utility scale projects they really rely on the utility and on a lot of very significant standards that the utility follows in order to establish safety. Certainly something like batteries is a lot easier than a plant that emits that has emissions and pollutants and pollutant criteria where there's already an established framework to regulate such as with the department of health and the clean air branch so this is really a different animal and I I'm very ignorant on what went into the planning process but I fairly confident that we leaned hard on KUC's expertise and on broader industry expertise as well as Tesla's to be sure that this was being done safely certainly engineering and electrical safety and all that kind of stuff were a high priority and I'm sure that was well evaluated but probably not worth me talking about that anymore. No I appreciate you giving a shot and we are going to take a break here for a moment and come back and I'll dig into some more things and see what else we can learn from Ben Sullivan. We'll be back in a moment. You can be the greatest, you can be the best, you can be the king conveying all your chest, you can be the world, you can be the war you could talk to God, don't bang it on his door. And we're back. Thanks for joining us again on Stan the Energy Man on Think Tech Kauai. We've been chatting with Ben Sullivan, Kauai's Energy and Sustainability Coordinator in the county of Kauai. Ben, welcome back. Alright, thank you. So we left off chatting a bit about permitting and just kind of the struggles that some would experience in trying to adopt new technologies and you mentioned that there's really a pretty high, well I'm not going to say I know it's a two way street but it seems that industry information is really heavily relied on. Go ahead. There's a lot of specialization as you can imagine. So I mean certainly there's lessons learned when the Onahola solar farm was put in, I think a lot of people were just so excited about solar that they didn't stop to think about the substation that was going to be right on the highway and potentially impede views and so as that thing was being built, people started to realize, oops we shouldn't have put the substation right on the highway. So there's an example of where the community engaged and they let people know, hey we're not happy about this. But just innocently nobody was thinking about it when we were building the thing and so there's bumps and bruises along the way but they're more to do with how does it impact the community than the new technology necessarily. Great. So in your job I know you've mentioned it's kind of high level and policy oriented and so you kind of have a broad overview of how things come together and the last time we met you had some information about the importance of data and how that helps you to make sure you have a pretty good visual of what's happening to be sure that you understand what's happening on the ground not just from a policy level but obviously how things are implemented as well. So I wondered if you could share a little bit just about your well about your data development. So this is a visual exercise and so I apologize for us not having a visual on this that we're going to dive into it but I am a huge advocate for data and I think we in the state of Hawaii have a huge opportunity to leverage even the existing data we have now this is prior to any kind of smart meters or anything like that to better see what's going on in our energy systems and to track our progress at a much more detailed level. So the conversation Rachel that I think you and I had and others in the room a couple weeks ago was really about that it's about what are our existing data sets and how can we leverage them further through data visualization and analytics so that more people understand what's actually happening because I think we have this you know this fairly small circle of experts who understand what's happening in the system but there's huge leverage in opening up the conversation to more people because they can have interesting insights they can see market opportunities that that small circle didn't see they can take a different perspective a different tack and I am confident that it's going to be an absolute of a very fruitful pursuit for us and I'm eager to continue to help you know that work evolve around the state. Excellent and sorry I didn't prompt you for that beforehand because it just came to mind as I was thinking about things that Ben's doing. I was just commenting on talking about visual analytics right? Yeah no. Words, words, words and pictures about words. Thanks for giving it a go though. So you travel back and forth between Oahu at least I know because I'm here and Kauai do you often travel to the neighbor islands outside of Kauai as well? You know not as often certainly was I had the opportunity to be on Maui for the wonderful energy conference that the county and MED put on and learned a lot from that so maybe once or twice a year get over somewhere else overdue for a trip to Kauai island haven't been there in a while but typically it's a you know it's the kind of fly over to Honolulu ride the bus to downtown and sit in a room with folks and learn what I can in some sort of a half day or day long workshop. Yeah so when you're moving back and forth and learning things and soaking in knowledge and sharing because each time I've been able to sit with you you've shared quite a bit I'm curious how much of I guess that travel back and forth really informs the decisions that you're able to make or like how does that inform your view for what's happening on Kauai. Is it more just of a comparative or are you kind of pulling things in that can be implemented or is it all of the above? I think it's all of the above you know we rely on the great work being done throughout the state I think as much as anybody so one example is the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute has done some really great work for us to help us kind of move faster internally on some of the efficiency opportunities we have really quickly they did some incredible modeling of energy modeling over at our main police facility which is one of our biggest energy meters and we're able to really help us and help us you know get clear on how we should spend money to make that facility more efficient you know need chillers, better controls but really down to the level where we have a high degree of confidence you know that's the right place to spend some money and so when it comes to capital allocations and budgeting it's that much easier to talk to leadership and say hey this is a smart investment so that's one small example there's many more Pono Home which I think you know well is something that we stumbled into through talks with the energy accelerator and also with Scott Cooney himself directly and we were able to do a pilot last year Helen Y who I think you guys maybe know works with Hawaii Energy is doing workshops over here with KUC now and that's something KUC picked up in the interactions with those guys so I think you know that collaboration is not just internal to the island it's statewide and those meetings those connections are really important you know I'm super excited to be heading over to Verge to Verge Hawaii on June 20th and you know the state energy effort and I think that is going to be another great chance the tricky thing honestly Rachel is figuring out how to limit you know because there's so many invitations as you know in so many meetings it's like where do you draw the line and you've got to keep your nose down and get worked on or else you're just talking about nothing and so there's a balance there and we try to find that balance sometimes we get too many meetings sometimes not enough but I think that's a struggle everybody deals with. I've really been impressed by just the ability to work on Kauai and I often just in conversations learning from the neighbor islands it's we're always looking to Kauai and it's funny because the adage is then that oh well but they're cooperative so they you know they do things differently and I think there's definitely truth in that there are a number of things that play into things happening differently on Kauai but I am always encouraged just to see and even just in your list of examples just to see how information exchange can really impact what's implemented and I'm really looking to hear so many things that have happened inspired by your travels here so that collaboration is alive and well. Absolutely and you know it will continue and again I'm so excited Virg is an example but there's always I go over probably once a quarter maybe a little bit less than that and it's always a very dynamic conversation and I always run into people that I've been working with over the years and learn more and more every time you know the cooperative structure is awesome I love it and it solves a lot of you know a lot of the challenging friction that is associated with IOUs but it's not a match for bullet and it works in our situation it doesn't work in every situation certainly there may be other applications throughout the state but I don't think it's not the solution to everybody's problems and not that you're proposing that it is but again I sometimes feel like people look at it and they just have it's a little too sugar coated but it's still work it's still utility they still got to figure out the nuts and bolts of it and they do a great job doing that certainly they have great access to low cost capital that's one of the big advantages the direct representation is certainly an advantage you know having owning some equity and the utility as members I think changes your perspective to some extent certainly the county looks on it differently one of the things that we don't do here or haven't done historically I should say a lot of money on solar systems on PV systems for our own facilities and that's been very deliberate because we feel like that would really just be us competing with ourselves honestly because we all own the utility how interesting one of the other things I was thinking as you were mentioning that old bean owners and how that changes your perspective and just your buy in there are a number of companies that operate that way when you go out and you know that you're speaking on behalf of your own company the conversation that you have is a bit different as opposed to if you're speaking of like that guy over there who does that thing that I happen to benefit from so I think just even that that relationship itself is something that I think empowers not only the utility to behave in a way that is community responsible but really gives the community leverage to say what they want and it gives them that impetus to be more engaged in what's happening and to seek that information so that they're better informed when they're making decisions so I do agree it's not the silver bullet it's not going to fix all things but I'm impressed by what's been able to take place with that infrastructure in place one of my favorite things when I served on the KAUC board was that there's a small stipend associated with the position but it's really just to cover gas and babysitting and so really when you talk to a constituent you give your heart and share as much as you could about why you're making the decisions you were and at the end of the day often people would agree and often people would not and when they didn't you really get to smile at them and say hey you know fire me I mean don't elect me next time I'm doing my best this is what I think is right and I think that is a huge pressure relief valve because that puts it in there they're in control ultimately people have the ability to decide who's going to make the decisions for them and I think that one of the challenges that we have with the public utilities commission and the process that's going on throughout the rest of the state is that people don't know how to access that conversation and I think it's you know it's not anyone's fault it's a systems problem but the system is so complex and it's so inaccessible to the general public that people are frustrated you know there's so many misperceptions about rooftop solar and you know the utility is painted as the big bad utility because they don't want more quote unquote but that you know in my view that's just absolutely not true and so again advantage of being a small community advantage of having a cooperative structure certainly certainly plays out in that context well then I want to give you a bit of time to share any last adages you'd like with our audience we're rounding out our show here do you have anything that you'd like to add I do you know I'm really really lucky to be working over here on the garden island and for America value and the opposite development so I just want to share all my gratitude about that and being in this great place with KIC I would love for people who are listening to call to come over to our conference on June 19th and then to follow you know I guess make it a whole week of conference come over here for the day and then head back over to Verge for the statewide conference after that we're going to have a great conversation that low carbon feature track I think is right on point for where our community needs to be super excited about that really hoping that that's an interactive discussion the afternoon portion of our conference is going to be kind of a looser workshop format where it's much more interactive and we really want to hear from people you know what some of the questions we want to talk about are you know what is what does it look like to have a low carbon future in the visitor industry as an example how do we continue to thrive and continue to rely on our you know our bread and butter that is the visitor industry in that context and you know certainly that we can do that but it takes it's going to take a lot of collaboration other areas that we got to be thinking about related to climate change and all these things as you know what kind of targets do we need to align to there was a there's a bill that's actually just passed by the legislature that says that Hawaii is going to basically follow the the Paris Agreement and what was laid out there and I think that's a really interesting and important conversation for us to get into and then you know obviously just continuing to revisit what the challenges are on the ground so it's it's these two pieces meeting it's the it's the implementation side and working and understanding the challenges and then also remembering in that context what the vision is and having those two things come together and so that's what we hope to have a conversation for and then hopefully it'll carry over to Verge and we will all continue to collaborate more and move faster and faster towards a towards a clean energy future outstanding well Ben Sullivan thank you so much for joining us audience you heard it straight from the horse's mouth beyond Corrie Island on June 19th for good conversations and a pathway toward a clean energy future thank you for joining us on Stan the Energyman aloha