Skip to main content
search
All Posts By

Jeff Ihnen

Jul 11
Love0

FERC 745 – The Worst Order Ever Produced?

By Energy Rant One Comment
Robert Borlick writes in Public Utilities Fortnightly that FERC Order 745 is “one of the worst orders FERC has ever produced” – “a time bomb for electricity consumers”. Whoa! I better sharpen my axes. That is a more lethal statement than I would even write, and it isn’t even in the opinion section. It’s a featured article. Let’s take this a step at a time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is adorned with the authority to regulate “the sale of electric energy at wholesale in interstate commerce”. As noted in DC Smackdown of FERC, regulation of interstate commerce is…
Read More
Jun 27
Love0

Savings Persistence – Funner than a Barrel of Monkeys

By Energy Rant No Comments
Today, let’s consider a subject that is as squishy, subjective, and amorphous as net savings and non-energy benefits (see here and here). Today’s subject is savings persistence. Savings Persistence and Its Importance Even allowing for generous latitude, if I polled readers of this post, I would probably get a dozen definitions of savings persistence. For retro-commissioning, persistence is ensuring the measures aren’t undone. For the broader group of behavior programs, persistence is getting customers and their occupants (family or employees) to continue to value and manage energy over the long term.To the evaluator, savings persistence opens many cans of worms.…
Read More
Jun 20
Love0

Market Forces Give (Carbon Reduction); Market Forces and Flawed Policy Take Away

By Energy Rant No Comments
What is the purpose of the Clean Power Plan? To reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030? No. It has major flaws for actual, as in reducing tons of carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere, but I will come back to that later. As reported in Clean Power Plan Coma Phase, the country is already half way to the CPP goal, and it hasn’t even taken hold yet. Instead, it has begun the decades long legal battles with an initial vote of confidence handed down by the Supreme Court. How did we achieve 50% of the progress already?…
Read More
Jun 14
Love0
PJM

Four Shades of Electrical Demand – A Riveting Cliffhanger

By Energy Rant One Comment
Last week I related electrical demand in kW with electrical energy in kWh. Energy is the area (power times time) under the kW curve. Without cheating, I’ll do an example. Elementary Calculus In energy-nerd world, a curve is a line of any form, including a straight line. Consider the simple ax + b curve on the right, where a is the slope and b is the y-intercept.  The equation is y = 2x +4. C’mon you had this in elementary school. Challenge yourself!If I want the energy consumed from hour two to hour ten, I simply take the integral of…
Read More
Jun 06
Love0
demand

Learning Calculus via Demand and Energy

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
Last week, I was commenting on some retro-commissioning findings, and I was considering demand savings estimates versus energy savings estimates. A colleague asked, “If you are aware of any energy versus demand papers I would like to know more.” I was informed that the Association of Energy Engineers coursework for becoming a Certified Energy Manager only skims the surface, using a garden hose as a metaphor, for demand and energy. The flow of water represents the flow of power (kilowatts), and the water represents energy – the sum of power over time. This is a disservice because demand charges can…
Read More
May 31
Love0
cannabis

Cannabis – A Big Issue Coming to a Utility Near You

By Energy Rant One Comment
Every kilogram of marijuana produced has a carbon bigfoot print of 4.3 metric tonnes (4.7 tons) of CO2. Marijuana production (U.S) consumes the annual electricity production of 1.7 million homes. Marijuana production consumes 1% of the nation’s electricity, and it’s growing rapidly. Data centers consume 3% of electricity worldwide. Mother Jones reports a growth module that four measly plants consume as much power as 29 refrigerators – probably not even efficient ones at that. Ok. Now that we have some context, you can bet this is a serious post. Public Service Announcement I can’t help but mention that older marijuana…
Read More
May 23
Love0
dna

Thinking Required; Uh Oh – Effective v Triggering DNA

By Energy Rant No Comments
A year ago, I ranted about the Powerwall, part of Elon Musk’s grand vision of flashy widgets. From that post, I will modify a portion to fit this post: Uber is disruptive. Powerwall isn’t. Powerwall is mostly disruptive to the owner’s bank account. It solves no problem, but it does create new ones. In last year’s post, I assessed the cost of electricity storage via the 7 kWh Powerwall. Over the lifetime of the unit, the cost per kWh would be 11.7¢ per kWh, kWh and installation not included. In other words, the storage alone costs 11.7¢. Imagine if your…
Read More
May 16
Love0
evaluation

Real Time Evaluation for Real – Excuses Stay Home

By Energy Rant One Comment
People and firms talk about integrating evaluation findings into programs and portfolios closer to real time than the conventional methods.  But what is really being done about it other than talk? This post features some concrete ideas to put in the bank - money. First, what is the conventional evaluation process? Approaches and plans vary all over the place because different clients see different general approaches. For example, some clients evaluate every program every year. Some evaluate every program only once per EE plan cycle and within this subset, some evaluate them all in one shot over the course of…
Read More
May 09
Love0
program

Program Adoption Curves – Telephones and Televisions

By Energy Rant No Comments
There are certain energy efficiency programs that we are never going to pursue – all those that are in the late majority and laggard stages. Those ships left the pier 10-15 years ago, and we are not going to attempt to catch them. In two words, they are widget programs, up, down, mid, over, under-stream programs of all stripes, including direct install. The previous chart shows theoretical adoption and market share curves. Of course, in reality, adoption isn’t nearly as pretty, as shown in the next chart, which is fascinating. You will want to get your own version of that…
Read More
May 03
Love0
natural gas

Natural Gas is a Wonderful Fuel, Btu, er But,,,

By Energy Rant No Comments
New ideas are great, but there is no replacement for accumulated experience to assess the landscape ahead and see potential trouble on the horizon. This is one of my most important responsibilities for our company. I am no mountain climber, but I am reminded of mountaineering documentaries about summiting Everest and getting past the treacherous Hillary Step. Just last week, I met with a team of engineers cautioning them about crucial steps in the progression of a project that would make or break the project. It involved a combination of technical factors and human factors.Too bad there is no empowered…
Read More

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

Subscribe for Expert Insights
Close Menu