OK, I believe we gave enough margin to the latecomers. So once again, good morning to everyone who decided to join us for our webinar today. My name is Tomasz Wolenski, and I'm a product and marketing manager at RF Elements. And I'll take you through this journey today. So because there is so much to talk about when we consider the topic of antennas, we decided to divide this webinar into two parts. To both horns and patch arrays are topics volumetric enough that they deserve their own time slot, so that we're able to give a good overview of each technology. And in this webinar, we'll talk about the horns, and there'll be another one about the patch arrays in the beginning of October. So if you're interested in all the whys and hows of the patch arrays, make sure you do not miss it. And before we go into the topic, in case you have any questions, I encourage you to type them down into our questions tool, and I'll try to answer these questions at the end of the webinar. So what makes an antenna a great sector antenna? Most whys know about gain, beam width, front of the ratio, maybe a few more. And on top of that, on top of what you might already know, there are many other parameters antennas have. And here you see a list of the most important sector antenna properties from our RF elements point of view for whys networks. Ideally, every deployment you do would get a separate treatment, meaning you look at all the nitty and gritty details of the variables you're working with. But of course, we understand that as being a whisp, your life is very busy, and there might not always be the space to give the proper care to each link. Or, well, depending on your experience, you might as well know immediately what hardware you need to use. What we show here is rather exhausting list as a reference if you have the space to plan optimally. Now, whether you stick to it or not is of course what we call the art of what's possible. But it's a good thing to remember. You can always come back to this presentation because we'll put it on our YouTube channel at some point. And if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, you'll also get the notification when we publish the recording. So because horns are based on waveguide technology and patch arrays on PCB technology, there are fundamental differences between them. And although both types of antennas are used for the same job, the physics of their operation differ quite much. So resulting, which results into different factors, influencing the side-lob level, stability of the radiation pattern or co-location capabilities. So Wisps are increasingly sobering up from the approach of the quote, unquote, cheaper is better in terms of the hardware they choose to deploy. Now, although in the past, there has not been much choice in terms of the hardware. Nowadays, Wisps are having gradually more and more experienced and more education to know that besides the price, the network stability, scalability, or balance of the horizontal vertical chains or the coverage stability are the key elements to running a successful Wisps. And we are aware that this might be a lot to digest. But again, this is why we're here, why we're doing this webinar and make sure to check the recording once it's up on YouTube. If you choose to and if you, of course, find whatever we'll talk about useful or interesting. So as advertised, this webinar will be about horns and we'll look at horns from the angle of Wisps networks, which means that we use the filter of the conditions that Wisps are dealing with in the unlicensed five gigahertz band. And again, this is a very specific lens through which to look at horns and which would be quite different in different industry or different frequency band. But to make this webinar as relevant as possible to you, we focus on the five gigahertz unlicensed band Wisps networks, which Wisps rely on a lot. So horn antennas come in various shapes and sizes. They look and function very differently compared to the patch arrays you might be used to. And even though horns have been around since the end of the 19th century, they're finding their way into the Wisps industry for, well, less than a decade. And let's go into it. And how does a horn antenna work then? Every horn antenna starts with a waveguide. And like coaxial cable, waveguide is a type of transmission line or a cable, if you will. It's used simply to bring the signal or the energy from point A to point B. And this example, we're showing a circular waveguide which essentially is just a hollow metal pipe through which the RF signal travels. And the main advantages of the waveguide is it's the near zero loss it introduces to the transmitting signal and the capability to handle very high power of signals. So while coaxial cable works from zero frequency, you have from the DC, this is not true for waveguide because of the lack of the center conductor. It's just hollow metal pipe. So there is, compared to the coaxial, you're missing that center conductor. So if waveguide doesn't work from zero frequency, what frequency is it working from and where does it start and why? So first let's call this frequency at which it starts working a cutoff frequency. And below this frequency, no signal can travel through the waveguide and whatever is brought to its gate will be reflected back to the radio or whatever the source is feeding the waveguide. Above the cutoff frequency, the signal travels freely. So effectively you can look at waveguide as a sort of a high pass filter. Below the cutoff frequency, nothing goes through and above it, the signal travels freely. So the cutoff frequency depends on the waveguide dimensions. In case of the circular waveguide, it depends on its diameter. And as with most of the things in the world of RF engineering, the physical size of the hardware is inversely proportional to the operating frequency. So in case of the cutoff frequency, the bigger the waveguide diameter, the smaller the cutoff frequency becomes and vice versa. The smaller the waveguide diameter, the larger the cutoff frequency is. At the cutoff frequency, we let's call it FC for short. At the cutoff frequency, the signal starts to travel in the waveguide and its fields only have one mode. The signal which propagates through the waveguide has only one mode, where the mode is the colorful pattern you see on the animation. So the color coding tells you how strong the field intensity is. The red color signifies the strongest field intensity and the blue one is the weakest. And for the rest of the colors, well, it's anything in between. So let's call this mode M1. And this M1 mode is well understood by the physicists and by the engineers. And we know how the waveguide behaves when it's operated in this first mode. So devices which are based on the waveguide operating with the mode M1 are also reliable and well understood. As we keep increasing the frequency though beyond the first cutoff FC, when we cross the FC2, which is another kind of frequency, that means another mode starts to exist in the waveguide and this another mode combines with the first mode and creates the resulting pattern you can see on the slide. And then at FC3, or the third cutoff frequency, yet another mode starts to exist and again combines with the previous two creating the resulting field pattern you can see and so on and so on. This can actually go indefinitely. And these additional modes above the first mode, we call them higher order modes. The total energy of the RF signal which travels through the waveguide is actually distributed among all these modes, of course, depending on the frequency. So we can say that the higher order modes suck the energy from the first mode since we usually pick up and work only with the first mode. So in that sense, the higher order modes are not useful or desirable because once we cross that FC2, the waveguide starts to behave unpredictably. It's not well understood how the operation of the devices based on the waveguide that works with the higher order modes work. So that's why we try to avoid this. So since the higher order modes change their radiation pattern of a horn antenna that might be based on it, the undesired way and make the functioning of the waveguide somewhat hard to predict, we restrict the bandwidth of the operation between FC and FC2 into a so-called single mode regime. So in this bandwidth, we are sure that the first, only the first mode exists in the waveguide which makes the horn radiation pattern and its overall behavior stable and lets us also radiate or deliver maximum power from the radio to the antenna and onwards to the space when it's radiated. So this single mode bandwidth is, you know, what poses the practical limit on the bandwidth in which the horn antennas can operate. You can look at horn antenna as a transition between the free space and the waveguide. So it transforms the guided wave inside the waveguide into a free space wave flying through the air. And horn is an aperture antenna, which means its properties are determined by the shape and the size of the aperture. And in this case, in case of the horn also by the length of the aperture. Two main parameters determine the gain of a horn. So the length of its body and the size and shape of the aperture. So if the aperture of horn is symmetrical, meaning it is a circle when you look from the front, the radiation pattern of the horn will be symmetrical as well. So again, looking from the front, it will be circular. And if the aperture is oval, the radiation pattern will be asymmetrical. The main beam will be wide in the azimuth and narrow in the elevation plane. I mean, at least with the example we're showing here, when you squeeze the horns from the sides, yeah, from like on the horizontal plane. Over the years, the engineers have come up with graphs such as this one to speed up the design process of horns. So there are three curves here in this image which are partially overlapping. So these curves tell us how the gain of a horn changes with the changing aperture diameter, D, yeah. So it tells us the dependence of the gain on the aperture diameter. So the difference between the curves is in the corresponding aperture length, L. The lowest curve corresponds to L equal to half a wavelength. So the length of this aperture is half of the wavelength at which the horn operates. So to L equal six times the lambda corresponds the middle curve, yeah, which has this bump here in the middle. And to the L equal 50 times lambda is the one is the top right corner, carry bump, let's say, and because they're overlapping along this line. And so the design process of a horn starts with a choice of the length L. And then the designer looks on the graph and finds the D depending on the gain one wants to achieve. And there's also a blank dashed line in the graph, yeah. And that one tells us what D needs to be to achieve the maximum gain possible for, yeah, the maximum possible gain of a horn. And this is why there is a hill on each of these curves. Yeah, there is this small bump. So the top of the bump marks the so-called optimum horn, which tells us that for a given length, this is the maximum gain you can achieve. Here are a few examples of various shapes of horns. So some are rectangular, some are flat on the horizontal or the vertical side. Some of them have strange structures inside and so on. Now, each of these variations of horn has its advantages and optimal usage scenarios. Some are white-band, some are easier to manufacture, some have minimum side lobes and so on. For example, this double-riched horn in the lower right corner has this like two fins inside, yeah, in a vertical direction. And those make the horn extremely white-band. Yeah, so whenever you need an extremely white-band, you will go for the double-riched horn. And this is also why, for example, this type of horn is used in the antenna measurements, yeah, because it covers a vast span of frequencies. And we could speak about any of these horns, you know, like they all have their specifics that make them suitable for different scenarios. So let's first have a look at the strengths of the horn antennas and we'll start with the side lobes. The key benefit of a horn antenna is radiation pattern with no side lobes. There is no fields that are diffracted or some parasitic radiation, as with the patch arrays, for example, because the RF wave is fully confined inside the waveguide first, yeah. And the radiation of the fields is a lot more controlled and gradual thanks to the progressive widening of the horn mouth, yeah. And this smooth transition ensures that there is minimum reflections, yeah. And that's why the result of these horn properties is the clean main beam with no energy wasted in unwanted directions. And as a result of that, no noise collected from unwanted directions or transmitted. Some of you might already know our antenna, so I'm sure you heard it a hundred times, that yes, our antennas don't have any side lobes, but is there a way to quantify side lobes? Is there a numerical variable that describes the amount of the side lobes an antenna has? Well, indeed it's beam efficiency. So beam efficiency is the ratio of the energy contained in the main lobe to the total energy the antenna radiates. In other words, it tells us what part of the radiated energy is going into the main lobe. So the higher the beam efficiency is, the more energy is in the main lobe. In other words, where we want it to be, and less everywhere else. And in other words, meaning in the side lobes. So beam efficiency quantifies the side lobes. It gives us a numerical value that very clearly says how many side lobes an antenna has. So comparing any antennas in terms of the side lobe performance is extremely easy. The higher the beam efficiency of an antenna, the less side lobes it has, period. As simple as that. Here we're looking at a radiation pattern of a traditional sector antenna. So if it's beam efficiency is 58%. The 58% is the power that the antenna radiates and that goes into the main lobe. So the remaining 42% therefore must be the side lobes. Note that we highlight all the side lobes. So beam efficiency includes all the side lobes of an antenna, not just one or a slice of the radiation pattern, but the whole package, the full 3D radiation data. Unlike front to back ratio or other side lobe parameters you might know about. So risks use a quite a wide chunk of spectrum. But in antenna textbooks, beam efficiency is defined at a single frequency and for single polarization. So this is the case for most textbook parameters actually. And again, it is up to the user and mainly actually the manufacturer to consider whether one should care about the whole bandwidth or just a single frequency point. So since the computational power is much more affordable nowadays than it was in the past, the choice between the wide band or narrow band information is really a matter of deciding of what is important rather than figuring out whether we can do it at all. Today, we can easily do both, no big deal. And with the industry, it makes perfect sense to average beam efficiency over the whole bandwidth. The antenna is working in a simply because we use their antennas in a wide frequency band. So it only makes sense that an antenna should perform well in the whole bandwidth. Therefore, we extended the definition and the textbook definition of beam efficiency to a number that is the average of the beam efficiency over the whole useful bandwidth of our antennas and over both polarizations, which turns the textbook definition of beam efficiency into sort of a super parameter, if you will. It is much more robust and more reliable measure of sideload performance than the single frequency single polarization version or anything else that is out there. So vast majority of antennas used for sectorial coverage and with networks are either patch arrays or hordes. The patch arrays have many frequency dependent sideload. So their beam efficiency values are around 60%. I mean, still, of course, there is some variation depending on the manufacturing and design quality. The horns generally have much better beam efficiency, but be careful here as well. You can see other horns in the graph as well, not only ours. So this is to highlight that it is not a given that when you have a horn antenna, it will automatically have high beam efficiency. To achieve stable and zero sideload performance takes quite a bit of effort. So beam efficiency tells you everything about the sideload performance while front-to-beam ratio or other parameters you might know almost nothing, really. So comparing front-to-beam ratio as used in the WISP industry to beam efficiency is something like comparing when looking at the world through a keyhole chain, I mean, sorry, through a keyhole in this case, which would correspond to the front-to-beam ratio and being on top of a hill and seeing the wide open space when you see everything crystal clear, which is the case of beam efficiency. The difference is simply vast. Let's continue with the strengths of the horn and now we'll look at the beam width. And the beam width we can achieve with horns. So horn technology has the flexibility needed to provide the beam widths fitting various covered scenarios. By adjusting the dimensions and the shape of the horn, you can achieve the desired performance, regardless if you need a narrow or wide sector, really. It's that flexible. This is the very powerful feature of horn technology in general, which gives you the ability to adapt to any conditions you might encounter while planning your networks. So horn technology is so flexible that you can actually choose, if you want to, to change the beam width in both horizontal and vertical planes or only one of them at a time. So when you squeeze the horn only on one side, in this case, we're showing the examples when in there it's squeezed in the horizontal plane, you change the beam width only in the elevation. So this results into an asymmetrical beam, which, again, fits particular scenarios with rather flat landscapes and adds a few decibels of gain so you can cover more distant areas. Yet another tool to your Wisp toolbox. The result of all these possibilities is a potential for wide toolset of horn sectors that you can have, which are suitable for different scenarios, obviously. So the top row shows the symmetrical horns with the gains. We can range from 9.6 to 18.5 dbi gain and large beam width spans. The second row shows the asymmetrical horn sectors with the gains from 16 to 20.5 dbi gain. For example, when we take the 90 degree asymmetrical horn, it has 16 dbi gain, whereas the symmetrical 90 degree horn has 9.6 dbi gain. So here we can see the power of shaping the aperture. In this case, it's quite intuitive. Like sort of when you imagine this, taking the symmetrical horn in your hands and squeezing the horn from both sides, you shape the aperture eventually to the oval shape and it kind of makes sense that you kind of squeeze more gain out of it. And in the same row, you can also see the example of a 24 dbi gain horn. We call it the ultra horn, which is good for the point-to-point applications or narrow sector applications. And this is, for example, a point where some which are kind of questioning. So what is this antenna good for? Is this ultra horn, is it a point-to-point antenna or is it a sector? Well, the answer is it's up to you. Whatever works for you, it can be a narrow sector. It can be a point-to-point antenna. So frequency stability. This property of horns is actually important and quite often perceived by your end customers and their service quality. So the human psychology works in a way that we're, let's say we prefer stability over, let's say occasional jolt of high-speed internet. So most people will be happier to have stable internet which achieves some decent speed over being able to do the pen of the network and see like, whoa, I can do 300 max or whatnot, right? But otherwise the network might be unstable. So for your customers, the stability of the connection is more important and that's exactly what horns actually deliver. Here is an example of our 60 degree asymmetrical horn and there is a graph of its gain depending on the frequency. So yes, of course, you can always say that, well, it's not quite flat, but then it's pretty close to be flat. And it basically shows us the maximum gain of this antenna. And this is important to have as flat the gain, it's important to have the gain as flat as possible. And that's in order to basically, be able to rely on its operation and eventually the whole performance of the network when you switch channels. So when you switch from 5.4 gigahertz, let's say, when you look at this point, the gain is somewhere around almost 16 and when you switch to 5.8 is a little bit higher, but then it's all, it's very similar. And I can guarantee you that difference between these two gains is negligible. You will get more variance of the signal received or whatever signal strength from the reflections from the surroundings. You will, I can guarantee you, you will not perceive this difference in the slightest. So in that sense, we can tell that the frequency stability of the maximum gain is really high. And there are actually two curves in this graph. So one of them is for the vertical and the other for the horizontal polarization, but because they're overlapping, you can't see the difference, which again is another good property of course. So here you see the frequency stability of the full 3D radiation pattern of the same antenna. So not just the maximum gain, because on the graph on the previous slide, we've shown the maximum, how the maximum gain changes with frequency. But here you can see how, I mean, okay, you can't see the over antenna, the numerical values of the gain at each point, but you can see how the whole radiation pattern changes with frequency. And this is another important piece of the puzzle when it comes to frequency stability of the coverage and the service you're providing eventually. So of course, you can see that the radiation pattern is breathing a little bit, but looking on the right side, how that translates to the change of the coverage. You're seeing it's negligible. And this is definitely important to the customers on the edge of the sector. I mean, of course we're not saying you should not leave any safety margin and connect even the customers, which are totally on the edge. No, of course, you need some margin, but let's say we definitely stand by the statement that the stability of the horse is uncomparably better to the traditional sectors. Here we can see a result of simulation with 60 degrees symmetrical horn. And so this is the projection on the map, but mind you, these are also results of the real physics simulation. That's why we also below the picture, we also show the parameters we used for this calculation. So we took the 3D radiation pattern off this antenna and made a quick and simple simulation to see how the coverage changes with frequency when you project it on the ground. So that's something more interesting and more close to the practical life. And there on the right side, you have the MCS scale. So the red color corresponds to the MCS level of nine or the modulation and coding scheme level of nine and more. The yellow to seven, anything between seven to nine and so on. So you can see what the coverage or what MCS range you can get depending on the distance from the AP antenna. But the takeaway from this particular image is that, okay, at the beginning, we can see that the horns, the coverage grows a little bit, but for the rest of the useful spectrum is stone stable. And this is exactly what you want from a sector antenna. Stability means reliability and this translates into a happy customer in the end. Here we show similar simulation, but for the 60 degree asymmetrical horn. And I will tell you the truth.  Because of the asymmetry, the things will become a little bit less frequency stable and you can see it on the resulting coverage. It's like a nice avocado shaped pattern, which is, again, changing a little bit with the frequency, but it's definitely much more stable than anything else out there. Another component of the coverage stability is the balance between the performance of the horizontal and vertical antenna systems. Asymmetrical horns have the same radiation pattern for both polarizations, which perfectly fits this stability criteria. So you don't have to worry about the customers on the edges of the sector when you switch the polarizations, when you switch from the horizontal to vertical chain. So in comparison, the competitive battery rate sectors have unbalanced horizontal and vertical systems, which has a negative influence on the field performance, but hey, more about that in the part two. Let's not go ahead of ourselves too much so far we've shown the properties of a horn antenna, which is designed to fit all the criteria we talked about as well as possible, let's say, but do not get fooled. I mean, not all the horns are performing this way. There are many types of horns as we saw previously and even when a given type of a horn has certain advantage, it takes considerable effort to optimize the antenna so that it has the properties we are looking for when we're basically looking through its performance through the lens of the OptinWisp networks. So here's the radiation pattern of the 90-degree asymmetrical horn, no side lobes, and only one clean main lobe in both elevation and azimuth planes. So the horizontal and vertical patterns are nearly identical. So there is barely any difference between the red and blue curves. And again, these are not just some marketing images we tweaked in the Photoshop to your liking. No, these are real-world measurements. Here is an example of a so-called pyramidal horn. Now you already know that the pyramidal horn is has rectangular shape. And the inherent property of pyramidal horn is that it has some side lobes. Now, despite that, in this example, I mean, you can see that there are two wings on each of the vertical sides which are intended to suppress these side lobes. Nevertheless, this particular horn definitely doesn't have as good side lobe performance. Another problem of this antenna is the mismatch of the horizontal and vertical polarizations which results into different background noise conditions due to the side lobes when switching between the polarizations and eventually a mismatch of performance. They're like, it introduces more uncertainty in your day-to-day life. And that's why a lot of wisps are kind of like treating antennas sort of as a black magic. You can't be sure what this antenna will do when you switch the channel or when you switch the polarizations. Then this is, let's say, one of the components, why? Because of the mismatch between the two chains. There's another example of a 60-degree horn sector with similar problem of side lobes. Now we can clearly see them, they're still there. Not to say, of course, there is the mismatch between the polarizations as well causing the similar problems we just mentioned. Looking at the coverage pattern of horns, they're very, very different from the traditional sectors which might be often quite confusing to the wisps who are used to do with the traditional sectors which have a very flat radiation pattern. But let's look at the details. So with a horn, you can easily cover the null areas near the side. And this is absolutely impossible with the traditional sector arrays. Of course, you can always say that, well, but I can tilt the sector, patch erase sector so much so that it covers the null zone pretty well, which is true in the end, but you completely lose the coverage of the distant areas simply because of its shape of the radiation pattern. So horn instead illuminates the whole surface you pointed at. And you don't even need to use down tilt actually. And all this is thanks to the symmetrical radiation pattern which is really a great advantage for a sector antenna. So it's really nothing to be afraid of or skeptical, but actually it's another advantage to be used. In general, the radiation pattern of a horn with more width in the elevation allows for much better coverage of the null areas near the side. Again, that's just not possible with the traditional patch erase sectors. And here we show how it works with the asymmetrical horns when they are squeezed on either side. And yes, I can tell you that of course the asymmetrical horns cover the null zone a little bit less than the symmetrical horns, but again, later on we'll see the different scenarios for which each of these types of horns are the most suitable. So the zero silo radiation pattern is especially useful in sparsely populated areas outside the big cities and also inside the cities. The scalability of the whole combo of the symmetrical and asymmetrical horns gives you a vast flexibility when you're planning out the coverage. Yeah, so when you need more gain and have more customers close to each other and in a densely populated and urbanized area you wanna go narrow with the beam width. But when the customers are more sparse and not so far away from the site and the wide beam might be more handy in this case. So here we show how which scenario the asymmetrical horns are better for in terms of the variability of the landscape profiles. So as I mentioned before, the radiation pattern of the asymmetrical horns is flatter from the top. So it has less smaller beam width in the elevation than the azimuth. And just by this merit, it's more suitable for flat or mildly hilly landscapes. And also the areas where you actually need to, where there's additional few DBs of gain come handy because the customers might be further away from the site. The symmetrical horns on the contrary are actually suitable for any kind of landscape. It really doesn't matter where you're in in the Alps in the mountains of Colorado or in the flat lines of Louisiana, whatever it is, the symmetrical horns will do a very, very good job. And that's again, thanks to that shape of the radiation pattern, the symmetry. It's the same with the azimuth and elevation. And that enables like super easy coverage of the deep valleys. So if you live in a mountainous region, this is where the symmetrical horns are the best sectors you can use. For example, in this scenario, the patchway sectors would actually have very hard time because of how narrow their radiation pattern is in the elevation plane. But again, more of that in the second part of your webinar. So the variable beam width and gain the horns have enables an amazing scalability of network as such. So with asymmetrical horns, you have more tools to plan your networks in a sustainable way due to the lack of side lobes as well as the symmetric horns. And what does this scalability actually mean here? What do we mean by that? So scaling a network means growing a network. Meaning that sooner or later, you'll need to add more and more sectors. And with the traditional sectors, as you add with each and every new sector, you will be noticing the deterioration of the network's performance because of self-interference at the very least, not to speak of the situations if you have competition in the area, which is another source of noise and so on and so on. So you can only grow your network to a certain point where you come to a point where adding one more sector will make your network collapse altogether. So meaning that your scalability has a very low limit. Whereas on the contrary with the horns, again, thanks to the stability and the zero side low pattern and so on and so on, you can add more and more sectors. You can really cut the cookie however you want. Combine the beam weights, combine the different gains, overlap the sectors, whatever it is. Thanks to the horns properties. There is virtually no limit to your network growth. And that's actually what's actually a really nice thing to have, being able to grow when you need to and to be able to grow safely. Meaning that adding new sectors will not do anything to the infrastructure which is already in place. So every coin has two sides. And of course, so does the technology of horn antennas. So let's now look at the issues the horns might be facing. The first one we're gonna deal with is the cost of the manufacturing. So traditionally, the manufacturing of a horn antenna is a custom job, which means it's an expensive job. So these antennas are full metallic structures which are sensitive to even the slightest dimension in accuracies. So to achieve high quality product, it is not uncommon to use expensive milling machines with tools you have shown here on the slide in the picture on the right. And this is valid for high or low frequency horns without exception really. And it's probably even more so in the high frequency when things become like teeny, wey, small and it's very hard to do that precise manufacturing. Maybe some of you out there with experience in the machining can testify that these tiny, the smaller the things get, the more expensive they become because the precise machining and milling technology is quite expensive. Nevertheless, at least at our developments, we definitely put a considerable effort and energy into tweaking the design of our antennas to result into a optimized manufacturing process to a degree that actually these antennas can be mass produced while maintaining the high quality and performance standard. So definitely a large part of our effort is actually dedicated to optimize the manufacturing process so that we really meet that sweet point where the manufacturing cost is low enough to keep the pricing affordable for Wisps, but at the same time with pretty much no compromise on the quality of the performance. So in the end, it definitely is possible to make a horn antenna out of long lasting and high quality non-corrosive materials and without compromises on the quality of the art performance, but it has to be done right. So the issue with horns number two is the limit to the gain they can actually achieve in the real life. And in other words, we cannot increase the gain of horns indefinitely. So comparing a point-to-point horn with a point-to-point patch ray antenna with similar gain, the difference of the cross section is around 30 centimeters, which might not seem like much on the first glance, but mind you, these two images are in scale. So this is in the real life size comparison, let's say. But to increase the gain of the patch ray by six DBI, the area of the printed circuit board on which the antenna is etched will increase approximately fivefold. So not a big deal, honestly. I mean, the PCB technology is really well developed, to a degree that the production of the PCBs is very cheap, and the gain comes cheap. You just increase the size of the PCB, add a few more patches, and here you are. Adding the gain is actually quite easy. When scaling a horn on the other hand, you have to understand that this is not only the area, but actually the volume of the antenna that will increase and has to increase because that's based on the physics and functioning of the horn antennas as such. And for comparison, to get from 18 to 24 DBI gain, when scaling up horn, its volume will have to increase 15 times, which puts a whole lot more pressure on the mechanical engineers and designers to develop the manufacturing process that will accommodate antenna of such size while maintaining reasonable production cost. So it's really a totally different ball game, scaling the gain of a horn versus scaling the gain of the patch ray. And in the end, actually there is a definite limit to how high the gain of a horn can be. And you very rarely, if at all, can find a horn with the gain higher than 24 DBI. We really try to push the limit of what's achievable, but the physics is unrelenting and you can only do what you can do and what it allows you. So here's a short summary of the properties of horns. And the present state of the industry is that for the vast majority of whips, then the RF noise or interference, the self-interference or the competitors is the biggest issue. Where the horns actually bring in a good proposition and the zero sidelobe radiation pattern will definitely help with this issue. Not to say that because of the waveguide doesn't have any loss, you can deliver most, well, 99% of the power from your radio to the antenna, which again helps you. It's that one small additional bit of power you can transmit and provide a service to customers further away. And again, the frequency stability, we talked extensively about that and definitely an important factor when even from the point of view of the end customers of yours, which definitely appreciate the stability over some occasional high-speed performance, but then if the connection is not stable, it's definitely a lot more annoying. The bandwidth of operation of horns is quite wide. I mean, definitely wider than the battery antennas and actually the higher you go in the frequency, the wider that single-mode bandwidth becomes. So it actually only gets better the higher you go in the frequency. And not to say, of course, also the balance between the chains is important for that really high-quality performance and customer experience. But of course, the gain of the horns is moderate. I mean, it's a lot harder to achieve that high gain and there is unfortunately a hard limit on what is possible. And traditionally, they're expensive to build and manufacturing process is rather complex, but once that is hashed out, it is possible to deliver high-quality product, high-quality horn with the reasonable price. So at RF Elements, we like to challenge the industry. We like to really bring the value to customer not because the customer wants it or wants something, but because we're trying to deal with the problems. So we solve the problems which have on a daily basis through our noise rejection technology and our zero loss twist port connector, which is very easy and simple to work with and durable at the same time. And all this combined enables a massive scalability which lets your business to thrive and grow.  You can safely add new ones and therefore, our technology enables your business to grow. Well, and this has been me, the employee of RF Elements talking about our stuff. But I encourage you to check our YouTube channel where we have a playlist called Wisp Traveler where we have a bunch of short videos where Wisp's like yourselves, our customers share their experience with hearts. So of course, I can talk about our products all I want but as the human nature goes, we're all a lot more likely to start trusting or at least consider something when our peers who do not have a vested interest in selling their products to us to get more confidence into what's been presented. Another playlist we have on our YouTube channel is a short educational video series called Inside Wireless. And in the short videos, they're really like two, three, four minute videos. They have very quick punchy videos that go deeper into all kinds of aspects of RF engineering. So if you're still wondering what the Quad modulation is and how does it actually work or how do the polarizations work? What's noise floor? How do you actually measure the antenna beam width and so on and so on? I encourage you to check those videos. They're definitely a good resource to learn something new or refresh your knowledge. And I would definitely like to again, invite you to, if you're interested in all the details about the patch ray antennas in a similar fashion as we did today about the horns, please feel free to join us for the next webinar about the patch rays, which will happen. Actually, this is my apologies. I left this image here and that's for the central time of the United States or the Americas. So it's not the Wednesday, October 7th, but it's gonna happen. I think it will October 8th, if I'm not mistaken, at 11 a.m. central European time, but make sure you check it on our webpage. And actually, you can as well already register the registration link on our web pages. It's there and it's active. And I would also invite you to join our online community. Now we have, we call it RFELab, and it's a discussion forum where you can ask your questions or search through the questions asked by other users of our products and where we announce also our participation in all kinds of events, despite that obviously now there's not a lot of events happening, but nevertheless, it's a great resource in case you have any questions about our products and where, you know, let's say that we're not immediately available to chat or answer your questions. Personally, it's definitely a good place to start. And we're also actually putting all kinds of like recordings of webinars like this one or other videos. We're also putting them there. So feel free to check those as well. But in case you, you know, something comes to your mind, whatever it may be, you know, contact us either, you know, for example, the forum is a good one or our Facebook group or our Facebook page. So please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. And I thank you for your attention. And thank you for your participation and hope you have a good rest of the day. Bye-bye.


If you're just joining us from the other Selena video, thank you so much from that Selena video Lots of comments tons of comments tons of emotion wounds open up wounds that don't want to be opened up Which I knew with this this documentary Would do is gonna do and first of all I really appreciate all you guys coming on by to leave your comments It is noted and it's it's something that I knew that this Salacious documentary is gonna do now in this video like I promised We have a first look at a scene from the documentary. I haven't seen it yet. I'm gonna watch and react with you guys But what I want you to do is I want you to stick around for the whole video because I have a Very special Treat for you guys at the end of the video and also to right now Remind you guys hit the Latino slant calm subscribe to our newsletter Every week once a week I send out a newsletter that you can't get here on YouTube only through the Latino slant calm All right, well, let's get right to it man a TMZ Selena traveled with Yolanda after she allegedly stole the money Saldevar family claims Hmm, so that's the article in the article. They have a clip And I want to get to that clip right away Okay, it's on pause. I can tell you that this clip From the series is obtained by TMZ Yolanda's family discovers first-class United Airlines tickets for Selena and Yolanda on March 17th 1995 only eight days after Yolanda was accused of embezzlement this I believe is gonna be from Part two of the two-part Docu-series drops February 17th the clip is from the second part which airs on February 18th. I can also tell you on this This TMZ story. There is for people who are not have not have don't have any Historical information on who Selena is and her her her death her murder There is a great 20-minute Audio podcast you can listen to called last days Really good stuff, but all right. Let's let's get to what we've all been waiting for which is the First look clip. Here we go Monterey, Mexico Yolanda and Selena had traveled to Monterey in the past Frequently kind of working getting a fashion line started It's looks like plane tickets Let's see although Abraham, you know tried to fire Yolanda at that March 9th meeting Selena and Yolanda continued their business relationship their friendship. They continued still Seeing each other and we know this because we've got the plane tickets. Oh, so look it like it here So international airport of Houston IAH two month that I And this was on March 17th There's two tickets ones Yolanda's the other one Selena's so they both flew on the same flight on March 17th From Houston to Monterey So how interesting is that? Yeah, if she was embezzling money and they had that Conversation during that meeting. Why would she fly with her to another country? Yeah, I continue why continue correct. Yeah, that's why I continue that relationship. Yes, I Quit with her I had sent her my letter of resignation and she wouldn't accept it She was you will not quit who's gonna handle my my businesses and Monterey because in Monterey the business was already blooming and She's you will not leave me with all of this I can't handle all these remember you place your loyalty to me and she convinced me to go Okay All right Okay, I'm gonna be very honest with you guys I Do not I don't get Okay I'm trying to trying to process what I saw and My feet my personal failings and then also to what show business is all about it does not surprise me that the producers and oxygen are Going for have gone forward with this What is upsetting is that this is a recreated scene? That they're trying to pose to you they're trying to get the the audience to to to bring in that doubt Well, look here are the plane tickets. You see you see they were still friends. They were still friends Which strange is that it's the it's Yolanda's family The real siblings doing this recreation It's a setup right you put them you put the paperwork on the on the table It's not like this is the first time your discovery in this and the cameras are on.  This is a you know pre rehearsed Pre like they do in reality television shows Renactment but using real people I would have I would have if I was the the producers I just would have used out of focus Renactment actors, there's no reason to have these you know these people reenacting. Oh look here That that that does not sit well with me at all at all, especially if you're trying to lay an argument To the court of public opinion, which is pretty much impossible at this point that Hey, but this and that That I that that I did not I did not like at all and I get it that The family and what Yolanda are trying to do They're trying to lay the groundwork and what is a year from now her eligibility eligibility for parole So I get that what what what they're trying to do and I get that you know People want to see Yolanda Talking crazy from behind bars, but this reenactment. It's not a reenactment It's it's it doesn't sit it really really threw me off because at the end of the day And we're gonna we're gonna watch this and we're gonna review it From the information that I've gathered that I've always known and then you know kind of revisiting that that awful encounter No matter how you look at it Selena was shot in the back and This was a an act from a very mentally unstable person. That's just it So sure You know, let's say, okay, Selena did did say and do all that. Hey, let's go to Mexico Let's let's try to work on the business that just speaks to Selena's you know her personally Her her great her great You know morals and values like she she wanted to help out her friend She wanted to give her friend another chance even though her family was saying no, it's that local, you know cut her out That's fine. That's fine. Okay, what's we're gonna we're gonna see what their other arguments are for secrets but as of 99% of the court of public opinion This woman was shot in there in the back in cold blood so Yeah, that was hard to watch and like I said, I told you it really bothered me. I get why Hollywood is hollywood in in this it's pretty disgusting. It's pretty low It's really low and I You know Hollywood this does not count as Latino representation.  Oh My god, okay, so I promised you a You know an uplifting, you know gift at the end of this video. I had a An interview that I did with noemi Gonzalez who played Lisette Quintanilla Selena sister in the television show the Netflix television show Selena so I want to share that with you right now Go right now and check out our great talk that I had with noemi Gonzalez Who played Selena sister in the Netflix television show wherever you're at keep that slant fuerte gracias paz Give me the Selena


I love the fall I don't know about you, but I love it the cooler weather I got my plan on and like pumpkin spice everything. I don't even have to say anything else Pumpkin spice fall leaves. I love the look of them But I mean how do you preserve them? So I thought I could come up with some napkin ring holders so I found some leaves in my neighborhood and this amazing Silicone mold and I just cut the stem off here to make sure That it fit. We're gonna do a one-to-one ratio of hardener and resin. We're gonna do a pretty shallow pour And now we are gonna mix. Okay, so as I mix scraping the bottom always for three minutes Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite favorite meal of all time. Turkey, gravy, cranberry, oh my goodness, and stuffing for sure. I could just have a plate of stuffing and I'm happy I like the box stuff. I do. I like the stovetop stuffing. Okay, so I've mixed my resin It really helps to have a silicone mat handy to put the the wet spatula on and it's gonna make clean up way easier as well Okay So now I'm gonna pour and a shallow pour at first and then we're gonna let it sit And then I'm gonna put the leaves in and then do a second pour on top of the leaves And the amazing thing about working with resin is that it self levels Okay So now it's poured and I'm just gonna get my torch and torch up all of those bubbles We're just gonna let it sit for about half an hour or so and the reason for that is because it's gonna start to cure It's gonna be a little more jelly-like and the leaves are just gonna submerge and and stay put that little bit more Okay, so we'll see you in half an hour. Okay, so we're back now for our second pour What we're gonna do now is to put our leaves on and do our second coat So we're gonna put it on with the top side showing and that way we have full control over Any bubbles and we can make sure it looks absolutely perfect and beautiful and just a little bit sticking up here so I can use my toothpick and Submerge it so we've got all our leaves in submerged in the resin and now we're gonna get ready to do our second coat Now we're gonna take out all the bubbles with our torch again Good looks good. We're gonna let this sit for 24 hours and tomorrow We'll put the backing on and I'll show you how to turn these into napkin holders We're back and all this talk about pumpkin spice latte yesterday. I had to go out and get one I was thinking about it all night long. So if you don't mind Okay, okay, so we're gonna reveal now our leaf napkin ring holders and here they are they turned out beautifully So we're just gonna pop these out and one of the beautiful things about using silicone It's so easy to just pop these discs out here totally preserved Pop out this guy here. You can see the leaf is curled. So it's kind of got a 3d effect I think that's really neat if you don't want that though I'd suggest leaving the leaves in a book maybe for 24 hours before you resin them And you'll see to their little pliable at this stage The reason it's a bit pliable right now is because it doesn't have any backing on it If you had poured it onto a canvas, it would be hard at this point as well So it has something to hang on to not to worry after a couple days. It'll be rock hard I forgot how sweet these are. Okay, so the next step now is we're going to turn these into napkin rings You can use any napkin a linen one would look really really nice Any ribbon I found this really neat rustic looking trim I guess But you can use any kind of ribbon or raffia So fold it in half and find the halfway point just mark it with a sharpie I don't use power tools, but I got my half proven Just put a little dab find your halfway point pop it right in Okay, and just wrap your napkin I've got some other ones I made earlier, which I can show you So there you have it a really simple easy resin craft for you This makes perfect addition to any holiday Thanksgiving table So thanks so much for watching and happy Thanksgiving I feel kind of sick now. This is too sweet. I feel sick. I don't think I can drink this anymore


Okay, our flagship energy program for the whole week is right now. So stay by the tube, you know. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. And the name of that program is Hawaii, the state of clean energy. And it's progenitor and creator and supporter for all these years. Sharon Moriwaki. Sharon Moriwaki. Over the top, Sharon. The chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. Hi, Sharon. Aloha. And we can talk about the Big Island today. We're going to talk about what's on the horizon for Hawaii County in 2018. And guess what? We have Will Ralston there from the Big Island. But Energy Coordinator, is that what you are? It's the Energy Coordinator. I am called the Energy Coordinator for the last seven years, going almost to eight. Wow, isn't that long? Oh, great job. You know, the people around the world would line up for your job, no kidding, fabulous job. Yeah, I'm sure. Eight on its side is infinity. So that sometimes that's how it feels. Tell us how you're doing. What's going on there? Yeah. So where's your office, Will? You located it with the county building and he left? Isn't he Conan? Aren't you Conan? We're in the Conoside, Leedsilver West Hawaii Civic Center with the PV storage battery and electric vehicles. So government center, that's self-sufficient when the sun shines. 100% renewable plus, so it's 200% renewable from like 10 to 3.30 and it's 100% renewable from 8 to 10 and then 4.30 to 5.30 now. And then, you know, when the sun goes down, obviously we take helical power. So you don't have storage on site yet? Say that again, please. You don't have storage on site yet? So then you can go 24-7? We do. We have a lithium ion battery that was obtained through ARRA funds, American Recovery Reinvestment. Good. We do have a storage battery. So let's talk about the Big Island. You know, here to say that the Big Island is probably ahead of every other island, every single other island on how much, you know, what percentage of renewables against the total. Am I right about that? You are almost right and ultimately right. There is an island out there, the second largest island in the United States. A good friend of mine runs Kodiak Island's electric co-op and they are 99% renewable with, you know, probably the same load as Kauai, mostly from Hydro. They have some wind turbines, some flywheels and yeah, so my friend Darren Scott runs that co-op up in Kodiak Island, Alaska. Wow, in Alaska. I was in the Coast Guard, well the Coast Guard has a big air station in Kodiak, so it's the largest Coast Guard station, correct, and they're the largest load, so it's a lot of similarities to maybe Oahu. Interesting. So what is it then about a Big Island that makes the Big Island such a high-density renewable, you know, experience that we have? What is your percentage, by the way, of renewables as to get a total amount of energy? So it's 54, if you go by the RPS standard, which we all know has changed, but if you go by the renewable portfolio standards, we're at 54.2% in 2016 and we're running about the same 54.29% as of quarter three 2017. So what's your target? Well, with who knew on board, it's projected at 75%, so within two years it should be up at 75%. Our target has always been to do the most, I think, even before the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative was hatched in 2008, we were at 38%, so we already hit the clean energy goals that were set for 2030, I believe, at 40%. So we're already there. What's the makeup of your renewables, Will? I mean, is it PV or hydro? I know you had hydro. So the largest load used to be geothermal, right? That was 20% of the renewable generation. And I guess if I hit the PV is now at 80 plus megawatts with a 25% capacity factor. I think geothermal beats it, but the PV is almost, it may be the largest generator like today, but today is a rainy day, so no can today. But geothermal and PV are competing for the top spot in megawatt gigawatt hours produced per year. So how is hydro? Because when we went there, remember some years back? I do. The Wailuku River in the northeast. Yeah, and it went from the north of Hilo, yeah? Yeah. So not much then, there, or how is it? No, it does come up to about, I believe it's 12 megawatts, it's run of the river, so when the river runs rages, you get to tap into it. So it's not a firm hydro source, like most people are used to, it's an intermittent source. So it does comprise, I'm going to guess in the 5% area because it's about, it's 12 megawatts, but it's not used, you know, flat out, full capacity base load, so I'm going to hit it with a 50% capacity factor or not. I'll look at some charts while we're talking and I'll correct it if I'm wrong. Okay. Well, let's do a kind of periphery examination. So I'm just, I'm traveling, you know, south of Hilo, everything begins in Hilo, sorry. That's right. And so south of Hilo, you have, of course, Puna Geothermal Venture, which is, what did you say it was, 38 megawatts, maybe is it more now? Yeah, it's 30 and it's 30 or 32 and then there's a dispatchable 6 to 8 that goes up and down, load follows. So it's both base load and the load follow, but you can call it 38, you know, just for our purposes. Yeah, and it's often discussed in the context of environmental controversies, I guess it's really a cultural controversy. And we know that it, Puna Geothermal Ventures could generate a lot more than 38 or whatever it is, hundreds and for hundreds of years or more. And so there's a lid on it. Now is the lid a scientific lid or is it merely a cultural or political lid? It's actually a lot of different things. So I would start, as an engineer, I would start with the transmission constraint. I believe that if you need, if you wanted to put more geothermal on, you'd have to upgrade the transmission lines, which run to Helo Central and then back to Puna. So I think the transmission line is constrained at somewhere around that 38 megawatts. Maybe they can go up to 60, but I think there'd be transmission upgrades even going to the 60 they're permitted to do. So it's transmission constraint and then it has all the other social issues that you mentioned around it. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you announced, or if Puna Geothermal Ventures announced tomorrow that we're going to go to 60 and that there was going to be sufficient transmission lines, would there be resistance on that? Would there be resistance on, I guess, what amounts to any incremental increase? Well, they did try such a deal with the Helco RFP and Helco, to their credit, was looking for a lower price for its customers and no one could meet that bar. So it was to be cost effective geothermal that would lower the rates and no one could hit that bar. So the other thing to keep in mind is that that's the youngest part of the island. So you can call it zero years old and if they had put the geothermal wells where they first drilled the test wells, it would have been run over by lava by now. So it's, you know, you want to be, you want to have a diverse portfolio is what I say, you want to have geothermal, the hydro is actually 16 megawatts. So I do correct myself. So it's probably 8% of the renewable energy. So you want to have a diverse portfolio because we have the geothermal, we have the world-class wind on the south and north points. And now the county, you know, has a third-party power purchase agreement with a great developer at LaLamila Wind Farm at our largest deep as well. So, you know, and then we have the photovoltaics at 80 megawatts and then the promise of OTEC in the future at Natural Energy Lab. So we have a very diverse portfolio of both firm world-class, you know, wind that blows 60% of the time is the best in class on land. And then we have intermittent with photovoltaics and the intermittent hydro. One thing that comes out of this is if the transmission lines aren't sufficient for an increase at Puna, would they, would Helco have to build transmission lines to get, you know, beyond 54%. Is that in the cards? Is that in discussion? It sounds like if you want, you know, you want to go to 100% at some point, you have to do that with Puna or no Puna, you know? Right. So let's, if we moved, you know, let's say we develop other places like Pipikeo, which is the Hohenua biomass, still needs some transmission upgrades. Not as much, I wouldn't think as much as the magnitude of Puna geothermal, because that's such a long run from Puna to Helo. And Pipikeo is very close to Helo and there was already a power plant there. So I'm sure it's just some, some upgrade. And then if you increase the North Wind Farm and South Wind Farms, there's certainly transmission upgrades. And that's where you get into the, okay, what's the all in cost to do the next project? All of these projects require some transmission upgrades. So it's, you know, instead of talking about just generation, we talk about the whole package now, generation, transmission and distribution, and then which project makes the most cost-effective. Yeah, you didn't mention storage though, actually, Will. What about storage in that package? Isn't that part of the package? Well, it's funny because, you know, with geothermal, obviously it's already stored in the magma. So no need. Yeah, yeah. With, with world-class wind, you're operating at 60% capacity factor, very, very unlike California, which is at 30%. So you're already like working 60% of the time. So the need for storage goes away the higher your capacity factor. So called geothermal, a 99% capacity factor, the wind at 60% and, you know, the hydro at 50%. Now you get down to photovoltaics at 25%, then you look at storage, and then it makes more sense. So, yeah, there's a storage need, but fortunately on this island, there's so many renewable resources and a diverse portfolio that are almost firm, that the storage need isn't as great, right? Yeah. Well, when you said that wind is 60% efficient or capacity-efficient. You mean that you're averaging it over the 24-hour period. Day and night it's still generating power. So that really is tremendous. In fact, as you say, it's way better than solar at 25%. So wind is something to focus on, no? Yeah, we want County of Hawaii and Helco, Hawaii Electric Light, agree that more wind should be done on this island. We can look at our neighbor island Maui that has 70 megawatts of wind. We're at 33 megawatts of wind. We could double that, but obviously the last wind farms in would have to do a different type of PPA, power purchase agreement. So that would, you know, they'd be last in the protocol. And then there's a new power purchase agreement that's being talked about on the street called Renewable Dispatchable Generation. Not approved yet by the PUC, but a different way of letting intermittent projects come in and play on the grid. I have so many questions about the big island.  It's got so much diversity. I love that. But going back to South Point for a minute, years ago, in the early phases before 2008, there was a wind farm at South Point because it was a great location for wind. But the developer sort of abandoned it, am I right?  So what happened since then? Somebody else came in and did another wind farm in the same location at South Point? Yeah, I believe they were bought out. I believe that was called Apollo Wind. And I believe it was bought out by the current company, which are father and son, Steve Pate, Pace and Rich Pace. And they're called Tahiri, spelled T-A-W-H-I-R-I. And they replaced the turbines with some GE 1.2 megawatt turbines, which I believe there's 15 of them. It comes up to 20 megawatts down there. Strikes me that the South Point area, like 12 miles south of the road at Waihino, is so far away from any town or main road. There's plenty of room on that big plateau there at South Point for more than 12, no? Oh, yeah, you could add quite, you could add, you know, maybe, I don't know how many megawatts, but certainly double the 20 that are there. And you're right, it's so far down. You know, we're lucky on the big island because when we look at our wind farms, they look like nice miniature dolls or miniature gingerbread houses. They don't really hurt the eye when you're driving on the road. Certainly, if you're living closer to them or if they're on a hill, you're going to notice them. But we're fortunate that we have locations that are far away from populations. Yeah, you mentioned the, I guess it's North Kohala you're talking about. As I recall, there was a wind farm just next to the Coast Guard station up there, which is no more. But that was a pretty good location, too. Is that the one you're talking about at Kohala? Well, I was just talking about the South Wind Farm that you were talking about. And the North Wind project is done by Havi, still in Havi. And it's been running for 15 years. Very successfully. No gear boxes have wiped out because the developer was really akamai about choosing the right gear boxes. And so those are the Vesta turbines. They're low profile, made in, I believe, Denmark. But we also have the Vestas at our Lalamilo water pumping site, which, by the way, is the most sophisticated water wind system in the United States and probably the world. Because it does not export any energy. It pumps, it cuts in on the right wind speed, and it checks the water levels in each tank. And it only pumps up to that water level and then cuts out. So it's a very sophisticated system. That is really, that's wonderful. What a great system. You know, so wonderful that we're going to take a one minute break to digest all that you've said. So, Will, we'll take one minute. We're going to see some public service announcements. We'll come back and talk to you some more about more renewables on The Big Eye, and we'll be right back. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Nothing is making sense. Hello, my name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at 3 o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. OK, we're back with my co-host, Sharon Moriwaki, co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum here on Think Tech, Hawaii the State of Clean Energy. We're talking about the Big Island. We're talking about what's on the horizon for Hawaii County in 2018 with the guy who knows Will Ralston's energy commissioner over there. And we've been doing a sort of peripheral look of everything going on in the Big Island. We have a map. This is going to be referred to as the famous Slide 16. We're going to take a look at this now. And it's been what we've been talking about. Ready? Puff, watch. There it is. Puff. Puff. There it is. It's going to come down a little bit. OK. Yeah, let's zoom back on it. Oh, nice slide. So we're showing 200 megawatts electric system, geothermal 38, South Wind Farm. We talked about that, 20 megawatts. North Wind Farm at Kohala, Hawaii, 11 megawatts. Lala Milo, where is that, in Hamakua? That's just up from Pulakau. It's right in the middle of the saddle. OK. OK. Right in between the two big mountains. OK, that'd be a good, it would be a slot where the wind would come out toward the ocean, I guess. Wait, so when we're looking at that map that we go from north to south, where are these projects, Will? So on the slide, obviously the geothermal is located in Puna, which is all the way to the right in the most eastern part of the island. And then if you go over west, you'll see South Point at the southernmost tip of the United States. And then going north from the South Point Wind Farm, the 20 megawatt, you'll get lots of solar plays, mostly residential, some commercial Costco, everyone visits there. They have their own first commercially financed PV system in the United States was the monolani, I have to say that. And then an OTEC project, couple OTEC projects, hopefully coming to Nelha, where they cut the teeth on OTEC offshore. Going north gets to the hobby wind site, but I did miss in between the saddle our Lala Milo wind project that was done with the water department and is the most sophisticated wind farm system in the United States. As you go over to Hilo, you get run of the river. If you can see on the map, there's lots of streams. You get run of the river hydro, especially when it rains like it has been the last two days. So we're probably getting lots of hydro right now. Sharon and I were there. We visited that. It's really an interesting plant. It is. It is. Yep. So you have photovoltaic of 80 megawatts that's mostly on the Kona side or what? A lot on the Kona side, as you can imagine, the resorts and the resort residences really love it. It was a good tax break for a lot of people. The commercial buildings like Target, the Kona Commons, Costco all have it on top. Most of those plays are just to cut a big chunk of their energy out. And they don't export to the grid. It's just they have maybe a megawatt load, and they're taking out 600 kilowatts of refrigeration from Costco because it's running all the time. So just smart photovoltaic plays in my opinion. Very controllable, in my opinion. I think that would be a little, it's now at 80 megawatts, which makes it the largest aggregated dispatchable generator on the system when the sun shines. So it eclipses Keahole point, which is 80 megawatt machine, and also Hamakua energy partners, which I believe is a 60 megawatt combined cycle machine on the east side, northeast side. Yeah, let's dwell for a minute on Nelha. We were there only about a month ago. And we saw Greg Barber and his staff there. We went around and saw their stuff. They have a very, what do you call it, nutritious program for entrepreneurs of all kinds, business plan, competition, that sort of thing. And they're trying to do energy. After all, that's their middle name, the Natural Energy Laboratory. You mentioned OTEC, and I remember OTEC had a ship out there with a red hull, 1979, trying to do OTEC. But since then, we still actually don't have OTEC. And I wonder, you mentioned it's coming soon, but what's the status? Are we going to see that as part of this diversified portfolio in Big Island? You will. A 100 kilowatt OTEC does exist at Nelha currently by Makai Ocean Engineering. And an RFP is on the streets, I believe, for two OTEC plays, one near the one megawatt range. Maybe net power would be 600 kilowatt and maybe a smaller one at 300 kilowatt. So Greg, and I'm on the Nelha board, Greg Barber, the executive director, is pushing to have more OTEC at the Natural Energy Lab, as he should. There's an investment of $100 million in pipes and that cold water, that's energy. So having that cold water, that's available energy. So it just makes sense to use it. And we're going to try to find the economic breakeven point on that. But we believe it's a good R&D play. And we believe that a lot of OTEC technologies, like air conditioning and other things, like harvesting metals from the ocean and things like that, will spawn from that, just like super colliders taught us a lot about lasers and things like that, quarks, and gigs, buffs, and particles, and things like that. Yeah. Well, this takes us, when you talk about economics, talk about various diversified sources, it takes us to the question of how much you guys are paying for a kilowatt hour. Where do you stand on that? What's your average cost to the consumer? And how do you rate against the other islands? I think we're second after Molokai. We're either second or third. Molokai may be the highest. And then Lanai's up there. And then we come in right after that. What is that, $0.30? Yeah, I think we're a little north of $0.30. And obviously, it depends on the oil price. So it depends on the energy cost that's pushed out from oil. A lot of these contracts with renewable energy, independent power producers are tied to avoided costs. So as the oil barrel goes up, then the renewable IPPs, which 50% of the generation is done by them, they also get paid more. So we are still tied to oil. Some of those contracts will run out soon, 2020 for the Javi Wimpharm. And I think 2025 for the South Wimpharm that's tied to oil. And I believe the hydro, I don't know when the hydro one runs out, but those are paid out as it is tied to oil called avoided cost contracts. You know, the Hohunua thing is kind of an interesting departure. And in fact, it was an article recently, I forget where I saw this last couple of days, about agriculture being the new source of energy, an important new source of energy in Hawaii. And so we had a long history in biomass. And this is promising for the future. So where does it fit in the future? Where does it fit in the pricing, in the cost to the consumer when you add biomass like Hohunua? Yeah, that's a great question. That is the debate currently, is the biomass power plant going to be cost effective for the repair? So the answer is it's going to increase rates. So I believe it's like $5 a month for the average family. So is it a good agriculture place? Now you've got to look at it from a helicopter view. Does it do more for the island than it takes in disposable income? So it may make sense from a total ag, we have jobs in agriculture. We're using the forest that are not usable for anything else. The eucalyptus stands that were planted in lieu of sugarcane. And to your point, yes, we were burning a lot of bagasse. In the early days, we basically had micro grids around the island, sugar plantations that were burning bagasse, the sugarcane biomass for fuel, for energy, sorry. So yeah, you could say it's a generational thing. This is the new and improved biomass play. Back to the plantation.  So the debate is on. So talking about fuels.  And I think there's talking about pilots with the hydrogen, with the National Parks at H&EI doing some projects over there. How is that going? What's the status there? Right, this has been a sojourn in hydrogen. So it's been a number of years, several years, in working to get the hydrogen buses and the hydrogen fueling station here. So the hydrogen fueling station is being built at Nelha, as you know, and I think it will be complete. It may already be complete now, but we're looking at 2018 to get one county bus and Volcanoes National Park to get two hydrogen buses. So three hydrogen buses total on island. And then I've been talking to my directors about getting a hydrogen vehicle for our fleet just because the name of our department is research and development. And that's what we do. We did start with the first generation of Chevrolet bolts, which are the plug-in hybrid that has the internal combustion engine, the battery pack, and the regenerative brakes. And that's proven after several years, at 70,000 to 80,000 miles on the odometer of those vehicles, it's proven to be the right choice. We bought it at about 45,000, which most people thought that's high for our car. But I knew that $90,000 of technology was in there. And again, we are research and development. So if we make a decision that this is a technology that fits, and we obviously want to be right most of the time and not make mistakes. So in that, it took us two years to pay that electric vehicle off because we had it wrapped into the PV system. So the PV system, we got from a third party with a power purchase agreement. That's $0.20 electricity. So it's equivalent to about $2 a gallon gas for the electric vehicle. So it worked out and paid for itself in two years. So Big Island is so big. How do you, where are these charging stations? Does everybody have range anxiety every day if they go from here to there?  She has range anxiety. She has experienced what range anxiety is all about. And you can't find something. And you've got like seven miles left of your car. Yeah, exactly. I have Skype anxiety. So basically, we made the decision when Chargers came out, and Better Place was the leading entity that brought them out. But we made a decision, OK, County is not going to invest in public Chargers because we don't know what the right technology is yet. So we wanted to wait and see. And we knew that Maui was getting a $30 to $45 million grant with, I believe it was, the Japanese government and Hitachi. Hitachi, Hitachi, yes. So we wanted to watch and see which Chargers were the robust ones that still hung around. So Better Place failed, as you know. And then the next tranche was a little iffy. And then we watched Maui do well. But we thought that, OK, those are the Chathamos. Those are Japanese specific. We wanted a more general use Charger. And then we didn't know if County should lead in putting up Chargers or some entity, whether it was a car company like Nissan or Chevrolet wanted to lead that. And we also didn't want to put up Chargers that were not functioning, which a lot of them didn't for years. And people would go and try to get a Charger. And it didn't work. And there's a huge liability with people obviously could get electrocuted. So long story short, we waited. And now we're at the point where we're ready to put in a lot of Chargers. We've put them in on the Hilo side at our county building, two county buildings. We've put them on this facility, six Chargers. We have a fleet of five, six, and some personal people have electric vehicles. But it's been enough for our needs. But the public needs more. And some fast Chargers were just put in by Hawaii Electric Light. And so they're taking the charge, so to speak, with electric Chargers. And that to me and us seems natural because it is revenue, right? It's a good revenue stream for the utility. And so it makes sense. So what's the thing looking to 2018, the name of our show? We only have a minute left here. What's the thing that? What's on the horizon for Big Island? Yeah, that's on the horizon for you. What do you get excited about for 2018? The one thing that comes to mind. If you go to the next slide, Slide 17, it kind of shows you where we've been and where we're going. Yeah, poof, watch this. Poof. 517, ah, there it is, OK. OK, so you see where we come from just starting with our green government program and then start stepping lightly into LED lamps. Now we've done a total retrofit of all the island's lamps, first county to do it, first island to do it. And then we've been given an asteroid. An asteroid was named after our Department of Public Works traffic chief because he darkened the night sky. I hope you had a party about that. Very happy about that. We've also done, as you know, Lalamilu, that sophisticated wind farm. We won a national climate change award at the last mayor's conference. So then we're stepping into an EV charger network for our county facilities. We're looking at microgrids for certain critical facilities like our civil defense area. And then we're heavy in the PUC dockets, as you know. We go in those dockets knowing it's going to be a lot of work. We sometimes hire consultants that are experts. And we play very, we play hard in those dockets because we know they're important policies first. The way we approach everything, it's actually slide two if you want to look at that. That's our approach is energy policy first then energy efficiency second, on-site renewables, transportation projects, utility partnerships. We can't say enough good things about a Hawaii electric light especially in civil defense situations. They're amazing. Energy research and development, like we support the heck out of natural energy lab when we can. And then education and economic development all the way through those steps. And that's kind of our mantra. But where we're going to answer your question, I have to bring you back to slide 17, the strategic initiatives launched US and world leaders in renewable energy, 50% trajectory to 100% and we think we'll be there first before any island in Hawaii. So we're proud of that. We've done our homework. We started before the clean energy initiative. We didn't need anyone to tell us how to do that. We just did it. And then we wanted to storage like you mentioned but it may be hydrogen, it may be pump storage and it may be batteries. We don't know yet. And then we're gonna get the hydrogen buses. I think that's gonna be really cool for people to ride around and experiment with that technology. And if it's your favorite island then maybe it gets more favorite when you're experiencing these different cool things like OTEC and hydrogen bus. Well, if you'll have us we'd like to come over and make a movie about all of these things. Well, we'll come over and with a camera and sort of do it. That'd be great. Yeah, because Sharon and I did that five years ago. We had a wonderful time, yeah. Okay, well, we're out of time you guys. Let me say, Will, you're really easy to talk to when you're a really good interview. Certainly appreciate all the information. Have a better idea about what's going on in the big island, why it's so important. Sharon, why don't you close? Okay, the good things about Hawaii is Hawaii Island and doing all that you're doing, Will, from PV and hydro and geothermal and looking at it in a really planned way. So our energy briefing this year is long range planning and you're doing exactly what we hope all the other counties and the state does is strategically planned forward. So thank you very much. And I wanna keep in touch with your new developments in 2018. Thank you, Will. Will Rosting, Energy Commissioner in the big island, Merry Christmas to you, sir. Yes, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Melikli, Kimaka. We'll see you at the briefing on the January 10th. Come by. I'll be there. I already promised. Okay, great. Aloha. Thank you, Will.