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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN PWMTC 2019/09/17 2018-2020Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit 14th Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawaii September 17, 2019 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Public Works and Mass Transit ORDER: was called to order at 1:37 p.m., in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Chair Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Vice Chair (came in later) Ms. Karen Eoff, Member, Member (came in later) Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Member Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member (came in later) Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member Absent & Excused: Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member STATEMENTS The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The Chair called Alohalani (Hope) Dietz, who registered to comment in regards to Comm. 424, and came forward when called. CHR. LEE LOY: With that, I'm going to close public testimony. Mr. Clerk, please, Communication 424. COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 424: REQUESTS A DISCUSSION WITH JUSTIN SCALZI OF BYD COACH & BUS LLC, REGARDING THE ROLE OF ELECTRIC BUSES IN ENERGY SUSTAINABILITY AND DISASTER RESILIENCY From Council Member Susan L. K. Lee Loy, dated August 19, 2019. CHR. LEE LOY: Please, a motion to close file on Communication 424? PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 Motion to Close File: Mr. Richards moved to close file on Comm. 424. Seconded by Ms. Kierkiewicz. CHR. LEE LOY: With that, I'm going to actually ask Mr. Richards to go ahead and lead us in the discussion. I was actually introduced to Justin by Mr. Richards and heard the presentation. I think it's really timely. Myself, Ms. Villegas, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Mr. Richards are also holding a subcommittee on renewable energy for buses. And so I think this is actually a perfect discussion. So with that, Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Chair. Yes, we have Justin Scalzi to give us a talk on the electric bus from BYD. And this is part of the ongoing effort. I think all of us as Council Members are working towards educating each other. As far as all the initiatives we have coming forward. It is very timely. It fits right into our ad hoc committee concerning helping Mass Transit assimilate and obtain, and thereby deploy some of these vehicles. So with that, Justin I'm going to turn it over to you for conversation on the BYD bus system and then we'll open up for conversations and questions. So you're on deck. (Note: At this time, Justin Scalzi of BYD Coach & Bus LLC came forward and provided a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 424. 1.) MR. SCALZL I've put together what I believe is a pretty fair package, not spending any more money, actually saving money that you guys are spending, today; and show you kind of a path forward how you could expedite the multimodal plan that you guys have put together. I've brought in a third party today, a company by the name of AMPLY. They're an infrastructure company, and I wanted them to speak to you specifically about how you can build out your infrastructure to support of fleet of electric vehicles as well as support the grid. So, they're here to talk to us. Is it okay if I move right into that, or do you guys have questions now? CHR. LEE LOY: I'll check with my Council Members if there's any questions. Ms. Poindexter. MS. POINDEXTER: Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I just want you to go back a little bit. You spoke a little bit about—and I don't want to lose that part of itof how the batteries could be used during emergency situations. Can you just maybe repeat that or expand a little bit? MR. SCALZL Yeah, I'd be happy to. So traditionally, in an emergency service response plan generators are used to help power buildings, medical facilities, and Page 2 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 schools in an emergency type situation. Intrinsically built into the battery electric bus, because we use bi-directional inverters, we can off -put that power that's stored in the bus to help power a building like this one. You'd have to tell us in advance and work with us on what kind of power output you want. Whether that's 110 for running small things like computers and microwaves; refrigerators. Or if you want a higher level outputs 220 or 480. But those buses could then drive to the location where you need them and plug into that facility to help power it for a period of time. MS. POINDEXTER: So that might be something good to work with our Civil Defense to see what the advantages to that is. But that's good enough, the answer that you just gave me. So I thought, I was thinking, did I hear something wrong or was that—so that's an important piece. The other thing I heard you say is that you traveled on Saddle Road. It wasn't the best for that electric bus. Have you traveled the Hamakua Coast? Because I know the ridership there is very heavy, because you know, people from Puna travel all the way down and pick up through the coastline to come and work down at the hotels. And we have those hilly turns, and I don't know if you're familiar with the Hamakua Coast drive? MR. SCALZL I am, yes. MS. POINDEXTER: And how did the bus—what do you think about the electric buses on that route? MR. SCALZL One of the goals of the demonstration that we did a year ago with the past Administrator for Mass Transit was to test the vehicle in all the different situations. Saddle Road being the expected hardest road to conquer. We spent about a month traveling on all 14 routes that currently run with Mass Transit. And the bus that we have—the transit bus that we have set up for that was more than sufficient, actually performed as well as or better than the current vehicles in all 14 routes. MS. POINDEXTER: Oh, thank you. MR. SCALZL Yeah. As an add-on to the emergency response, I wanted to give you an example. We had a test done with the American Red Cross that basically showed that our 40 -foot transit bus, our most popular model, could power an emergency tent for almost a week with the energy that on board. MS. POINDEXTER: Wow, thank you. Very important information. MR. SCALZL Thank you. Good. Page 3 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 MS. POINDEXTER: I'll yield at this time, Madam Chair. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Poindexter. Thank you for keeping it in context. So with that, Mr. Richards, go ahead. MR. RICHARDS: Yeah, quick follow-up to what Ms. Poindexter said. A tent for a week, specifically what are we powering, lights, refrigeration, what are we doing there? MR. SCALZL That was lights, refrigeration. It was not an HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, and Air -Conditioning) system. HVAC systems require much more power, but it would just shorten the amount of time that could potentially run. One of the other things that we're talking about in the infrastructure portion of the battery -electric buses is the ability to charge those buses, even when there's no diesel available. Hawaii has a high influx of solar power that we could potentially store and recharge those buses so they could go out, operate for a period of time, then get back and charge again through energy storage and go back out and respond to the facility. MR. RICHARDS: So, and again just to follow-up on the emergency things since that seems to be the Big Island. For one of your 40 -foot buses; a tent, if we were talking about—what could we expect? How many people are you taking care of in this tent? MR. SCALZL I believe it was—the test was done or, and it wasn't a physical test that was done. We looked at the energy requirement. I believe it was a 50 by 50 medical tent that was set up to house upwards of 50 people. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, good enough, just puts it in context. Thanks, I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Why don't you go ahead? MR. SCALZL Okay. I'd like to introduce Rob Kelly. Rob's from AMPLY Power. CHR. LEE LOY: Mr. Kelly, if you don't mind, bring the mic a little closer. And you can go ahead. Thank you so much. MR. KELLY: Well, thank you very much for taking your precious time today to learn a little more about what we do at AMPLY Power. My name is Rob Kelly, VP of Business Development and a co-founder at AMPLY Power. This is a cohort. Page 4 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 MR. SIEGAL: David Siegel, I'm the Director or Operations with AMPLY Power. And previously relocated from Oahu to the Mainland to take this opportunity. So AMPLY Power was founded and recognized as electrification and transportation became a much more significant opportunity in the United States that there was going to need to be people who could help on the services side. What Justin does, building the bus is the most exciting part. It's the diamond. What we do is the infrastructure. It's a lot less interesting, but just as important. Because if you can't charge the buses, then they're not going to go anywhere. (Note: At this time, Rob Kelly Vice -President of Business Development; and David Siegal Director of Operations, AMPLY Power, Inc., and, Kelvin Kohatsu, HELCO (Hawai`i Electric Light Company) Fleet Services Manager; came forward and provided a slide presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 424.2. ) MR. SIEGAL: I just want to thank you all for your time and open it up if you have any questions. I kind of ran through that rather quickly. I'm sure a little bit of it was new to some of you. So, please if you have any questions, feel free. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you very much. I see Mr. Richard's light. Go ahead, Mr. Richards. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for that. And again, this is part of the ongoing continuing education for County Council, right? Justin, we worked together in coming familiar with the equipment and all. AMPLY, you guys are new to this. Has BYD worked with AMPLY in the past? Is this one of many or one of a few, what's the relationship? MR. SCALZL AMPLY is a start-up business. They can tell you a little bit more about the age of their company, but we've been working with AMPLY for approximately four months at this point. The reason, Tim, that I have them here today is because what I saw and what I've seen over the ten years in the bus industry and then the five years that I've been working in the battery -electric bus industry, is that infrastructure is the largest hurdle. These guys have successfully over the last four months have gone out and visited with both preexisting customers who have been running my buses for a couple of years now who are looking at their utility bill going, "This isn't what I expected." As well as new customers who have said, "I want to buy electric buses, but I don't know where I'm going to get the money for the infrastructure. I don't know if the utility is going to work with me on this." Page 5 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 So they've been introduced to a majority of my customers at this point and had very successful meetings with them. And so I wanted to get them here in front of you guys today to kind of answer that infrastructure question up front. I realize it is very premature. MR. RICHARDS: No, and, but to the point explaining and educating because the demand charge is what you're talking about as far as trying to level that out. And so if I'm understanding correctly, AMPLY is actually the customer of HELLO. And then in this situation the County would be a customer of AMPLY. Is that correct? MR. SCALZL That's right. MR. RICHARDS: And you contract—your purchase agreement with HELLO, you have that worked out. We have a purchase agreement with you, and we worked that out between us. And you manage your cost with HELCO based upon your management of demand charge. That's what I'm hearing correct? MR. SIEGAL: You've heard it all, correct. Yeah, great summary. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Alright. For the Council, primarily for the freshmen, the reason BYD is somebody we've been talking to is, BYD, I think it was at electrification meeting, Kelvin, was that two years ago? Two -and -a -half years ago, maybe three years now, not quite three. Where BYD, when we were starting to talk about electrification of the fleet, BYD did send us a bus. And we rode on it, yeah, but the point was they actually were interested in trying to present it to us, and so we do appreciate that. That doesn't go unnoticed. This is a step in the direction, and this is before Mass Transit, but this is part of energy, which is what I Chair. And then part of the ad hoc Committee, which is myself, Chair Lee Loy, Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, and Rebecca Villegas, as far as trying to put the zero -emission buses into a working plan for the buses as a whole. A couple of questions, when we talked about the leases, Justin. Is that a lease by the manufacturer or is that a second -party or third -party lease, what is that? MR. SCALZL That was a third -party lease. And again, that was with very little input. MR. RICHARDS: That's enough. AMPLY, do you have induction charging as part of your capability, and can BYD do that as well? MR. SIEGAL: Yeah, we're agnostic to the charging. So any top to your charging manufacturer we'd be able to bring into our system. Page 6 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 MR. SCALZL Yeah, I wanted to, and I'm sorry I did not get it into the presentation, but we have very successfully have a couple of customers who are inductively charging. And what that means quickly for Council is, we have buses that are running twice as far on a daily average than the battery pack will do alone. We're able to set-up charging infrastructure within a transit facility. So while that bus is naturally going through there for five or ten minutes at a time, it's picking up additional charge. I have buses running in Wenatchee, Washington which are operating. They have enough battery to go 145 miles -a -day. They're operating with inductive charging 185 miles -a -day, and coming back to the depot at night with 60-70 percent state of charge. So they only need to get a top off when they get back to the depot. MR. RICHARDS: For these buses, no let's just put it all for your 40 -foot most popular. What is the average charging time for say 20 percentile full? MR. SCALZL Well we are—I'll just break it down because I'm really no good at math, unfortunately. The total capacity in our 40 -foot bus is 327 kilowatt hours. That particular bus uses an 80 kilowatt charger. So, we're less than four hours for 100 percent. So for 20 percent of that, or I would assume we're 25 or 20 minutes. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, so based upon that, then coming back to AMPLY here, when you manage your power, obviously say we're charging ten buses just to ease of conversation, and we have an eight-hour charge window, you only have to charge five at a time, because you can charge five and then five and be full the next day. Do you need ten chargers or can you do it with five chargers? Is there software that swaps over? MR. SCALZL No, so currently in order to charge an entire fleet of buses without manual labor, you would have to have a charger per bus. MR. RICHARDS: Okay. Good answer. Just wanted to know. And one more question. You said you manage all this via internet, AMPLY as far as your charging via internet. What happens if internet goes down? Because on the Big Island it goes down. MR. SIEGAL: Yeah, good question. There is a controller on site. So it falls back to the—the process that we've put in place that is managed via the internet is more reactive to the state of charge. If that were to fail, there's actually a controller. The one piece of hardware that we do make that would sit on the charger, it would failsafe to only charge in between these hours at said rates. MR. RICHARDS: So there's a backup in case internet goes down. Alright, the question we do have HELCO in the room, Jennifer Zelko and Kelvin. Before starting to employ this, the energy at our new maintenance facility, do we have enough out there to put in chargers? Probably Kelvin, that's more of a question Page 7 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 for you. Actually Kelvin, could I ask you to come to the table so you can identify yourself then just give a—and actually I know Kelvin, but probably for the committee, if you could just identify yourself, please? MR. KOHATSU: Yeah, I'm Kelvin Kohatsu, I live in Hilo. I'm the Manager of Fleet Services for Hawaiian Electric, Maui Electric and Hawaii Electric Light. MR. RICHARDS: So the question, with our new maintenance facility for Mass Transit out, I guess Pana`ewa side. Do we have enough energy out there to at least get started? MR. KOHATSU: I believe so, but the Hilo engineering group is in conversation with the AMPLY group, and they're you know, tossing around the numbers. MR. RICHARDS: Oh, so you're talking story right now then? MR. KOHATSU: Yeah, we initiated the conversation back in April. MR. SIEGAL: The feedback I received prior to this meeting was that the infrastructure there could support immediately 15 buses, and there's really is no concern of power capacity at that site. So, everything that we've seen from HELCO so far says that there's enough power capacity to serve moving forward. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, Chair I'm going to yield because I've been hogging the questions. Thanks everybody. I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Mr. Richards. Anyone else? Go ahead, Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Sure. Hi, thanks for being here. Nice to see you again, Justin. And I'm not sure if this question is appropriate, but we just went through a long series of meetings this morning about the RFP (Request for Proposal) for Mass Transit. So I'm wondering, I mean are you guys already involved in that process? Or are we kind of Cart -Horse? Yeah, that? MR. SCALZL We're not involved in that process. But again, I've been watching the situation for quite some time from afar. We've gone through some demonstration periods. We're working with multiple counties in the State of Hawaii. And I just wanted to get in front of everyone to talk about the opportunities for electric buses. But we're not involved at this point. MS. VILLEGAS: Great, thank you. I yield. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Villegas: Ms. Kierkiewicz. Page 8 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Chair, I just have a comment. Thank you so much for the presentation Justin. I noted the cost of replacing our whole fleet with EV (Electric Vehicle) buses was $9.4 million? MR. SCALZL That would be based on the lease rate, which was a number extrapolated out on great credit for the County of Hawaii. We haven't looked at any of the exact numbers, but that is my assumption, yes. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: It's just really interesting, because we had conversations earlier this morning about a fraction of that and a temporary contract for potentially three-year service costing about that much. And so if we have infrastructure available through AMPLY at zero upfront cost, and you're going to be working with utility to stand that up. I'm glad that that resolution went through Finance, because we may have some options when we think about really kick-starting Zero -Energy Emission buses for this County and implementing our Mass Transit Plan. MR. SCALZL Also, please take into consideration that that number of 55 buses was 55 buses selected by myself with no input from County, so I'm not sure if it's the right mixture of buses. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: No, its fine, even if 15 buses, right, $2.8 million. MR. SCALZL Right. Thank you. MS. KIERKIEWICZ: Thank you, Chair. MR. SIEGAL: I'd like to add one additional point, is that right now HELCO has adopted the E -bus tariff, and there's 20 demonstration projects that are slated in this tariff And the tariff's available for five years, and it allows for charging of electric buses at an extremely discounted rate. So it would certainly be beneficial to be considered within that group of 20 demonstration projects and lock in that five-year rate. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you, Ms. Kierkiewicz. Anyone else? Oh, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Okay, thank you guys. That was very informative, I appreciate your time. Justin you came to us a few months ago with all this information and I liked it then, and I like it now. I would like to see our County implement some of this along with hydrogen and get moving towards our zero -emission goal. It's good to know that HELCO does have some kind or program that allows us to use energy, especially in this manner, at a lower cost rate. I like hearing that. And this is a point of information for me, excuse me a minute gentleman. Is this part of our ad hoc or is this part of the general discussion? Just so I can understand what's going on. Page 9 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 CHR. LEE LOY: Yeah, thank you for that question. Really it was to educate all of it, but if we want to implement some of that as part of our actionable goals as the ad hoc committee, at least we have some feedback from our fellow colleagues. But as we meet as a small group we can start dove -tailing some of this information. So it's really however we want to use this information. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: That's good to know. Thank you. Yeah, so again just part of our maneuver energy goals, this is definitely a piece of it. We can keep implementing diesel, but eventually we need to start growing out of that and into other areas. Electric fits right into that. I'm very happy to hear that we have a company that's able to help us with the infrastructure because that is crucial. If you don't have infrastructure you can't charge the buses, buses don't run. And it's a large piece because those connections are large to the grid, and there is a lot involved there, and if we don't do it right the buses will not work. And just being an electrician, I understand what has to go into that and the backend. I like hearing you guys are solar background because that's my background as well. So I will support this communication, and I support the idea, and it just fits really well into our County as we're looking towards the future. Thank you. MR. SIEGAL: Thank you very much for that. CHR. LEE LOY: Do you yield, Mr. Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder? Thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Richards, last one. We're running late. Thank you. MR. RICHARDS: Just real quick. So the tariff that HELCO adopted, that would be going to AMPLY and AMPLY would pass this savings along to the County. Is that what I'm hearing? MR. SIEGAL: Yes, absolutely. MR. RICHARDS: Okay, it's on record. MR. SIEGAL: We will show the exact energy cost as a pass-through to the County. MR. RICHARDS: Alright Chair, I yield. MR. SIEGAL: And beyond that, our CapEx (Capital Expenditure) is done on an open book policy. So you'll understand exactly what we're spending up front to get infrastructure in the ground. Page 10 PWMTC-14 September 17, 2019 CHR. LEE LOY: Alright, Mr. Richards. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I just wanted to ask one question related to the infrastructure, especially as it related to what you folks did in China and in Chile. Back -mapping for all of us, because they ordered all of these buses. How many years prior did they start implementing the infrastructure fleets with the EV charging stations? Help me understand that timeframe a little better. MR. SCALZL That timeframe is one that is one that's been a question recently. And it's the reason that I'm so excited to have AMPLY on board. Initial adoption from people who were very interested going with electric buses would order buses and they'd arrive and they wouldn't have any charging infrastructure in place. Working with AMPLY who has a solar utility background, that process timeline can be much shorter than it was a couple of years ago. So we like to, because production time of buses is somewhere between let's say 12 and 18 months, working the infrastructure side by side with the development of the buses is traditionally how people are progressing now. MR. SIEGAL: A follow-up comment to that is I've spent the last ten years interconnecting large commercial EV and energy surge projects, and the longest lead-time item is typically utility infrastructure, everything that happens behind the meter. And so the fact that HELCO is already prepared to deliver power capacity at this site removes a huge hurdle for deploying infrastructure. And it really becomes working with local contractors to deal with the electrical scope that will happen within your yard to get this up and running. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you for that, gentlemen. I like hearing if we could make the concurrent processing, right? If we're ordering the buses and we're standing up the EV infrastructure right at the same time. They'll come together at some point. So thank you very much for your presentation. It really was a lot for us to chew on as we go through our ad hoc committee. Thank you, gentlemen. With that, if there are no more questions? No? We have a motion to close file on Communication 424. All those in favor please say Ic aye. Vote on Comm. 424: The motion to close file on Comm. 424 was carried by the (Filed): following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Poindexter, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy — 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung — 1. Excused: None. Page 11 PWMTC-14 September 17,2019 ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. (There were none.) BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. (There were none.) CHR. LEE LOY: I also have a motion to adjourn. ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 2:46 p.m., Mr. Richards moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Ms. Eoff and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members David, Eoff, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Poindexter, Richards, Villegas, and Chair Lee Loy— 8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Chung— 1. Excused: None. CHR. LEE LOY: Thank you. Approved: 'AO Ms. ..• L. K. Lee L. (Date) Public Works and Mass Transit .mmittee SL/dt Page 12