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Jeff Ihnen

Apr 18
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Behavior Score

Burning Behavior Barricades Down

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, we briefly introduced an inquisitive concept: what is an incentive for, and who should get it? The rest of the post was consumed with a true story that could be called a merry-go-round of behavior that whipsawed a customer’s energy use over a period of several years. Quantifying Behavior Barricades Every program has some level of behavior nudging. The chart illustrates my first shot for estimating the relative dimensions of behavior barricades that must be overcome for various buckets of programs. The program type requiring the least behavior that I can think of is an upstream incentive program.…
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Apr 11
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incentives

Targeting Incentives – The Retired Farmer in the Mechanical Room with a Crescent Wrench

By Energy Rant One Comment
As we transition out of the dollars-like-dog-biscuits for widgets era into an integrated, connected, behavior and knowledge based era (EE Wave 2), we must reconsider incentives. We must reconsider what incentives are, and who gets them. I am only able to get started on this topic with a specific true story, but first… Sacred Cow #9: EE Programs are not Welfare Programs The status quo dictates that incentives must go to customers paying the electric or natural gas bills. In other words, like a welfare program, dollars must flow from the masses within a population to a smaller group of…
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Apr 04
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Non-Wire Alternatives

I Disrupt this Blog with Non-Wire Alternatives

By Energy Rant No Comments
As I read in The Wall Street Journal last week, I would like to disrupt the use of the overused buzzword disruption and the use of buzzwords in general, but I gotta do what I gotta do – talk about Utility 2.0 again. Come to think of it, the utility industry, and those that supported it, must have been asleep at the wheel in the 1990s. That was Utility 2.0 – deregulation, which didn’t work out so well with widespread bankruptcies, some of which exist to this day. Utility 2.0 gave rise to hucksters like Jeffrey Skilling and Ken Lay…
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Mar 28
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potential studies

Energy Efficiency Potential Studies – Unnecessary for Utility 2.0

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
A few weeks ago in Cost of Saved Energy, I received some great feedback and a few questions. The questions involved energy efficiency potential studies and what are best practices. You know what they say about thinking outside the box – in this case I don’t know what the box is so I have no problem going off the ranch.I started with the Ten Pitfalls of Potential Studies by Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) which didn’t answer many questions on this topic, but it did release an avalanche of unchained thought. Right out of the gate, pitfall number 1, Defining “Achievable”…
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Mar 21
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monitoring

Customer Success and Satisfaction – Monitoring Required

By Energy Rant No Comments
The source of this post is a report by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP), Next Generation Energy Efficiency. The direction of things going forward, as described in the report, is boiled down to a few key themes noted in the introduction: Deep comprehensive cost-effective savings for all fuels Controls and other intelligent efficiency technologies Advanced building designs with superb installation, operation, maintenance and control Integration of energy efficiency, demand response, and distributed energy Engagement of the private sector to deliver high efficiency products and solutions No widgets. A Bulbous Barrier First, I want to discuss a substantial, bordering on major,…
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Mar 14
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renewables

Efficiency v Renewables; Stability v Instability

By Energy Rant One Comment
It’s about time I got back to my stack of research reports, and I have a good one this week to write about: Distributed Generation: Cleaner, Cheaper, Stronger, by the Pew Charitable Trusts, October 2015. First off, let’s compare brilliant efficiency versus sexy renewable supply resources. I think it may have been Bill LeBlanc of E Source who suggested instead of cash rewards for efficiency, we give customers faux solar panels to put on their roofs. People understand renewable supply while they have some combination of not understanding or trusting efficiency; nor do blower door test results make for great…
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Mar 07
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DOE

DOE Pumping Standards – Can-a-Corn

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
Apparently, the nauseating term “low-hanging fruit” is not even a relevant idiom. According to Priceonomics.com, low-hanging fruit is all there is these days. Priceonomics says growers have for centuries been developing the modern Frankenfood-producing apple trees of today, but this miserable term lives on anyway. Priceonomics produced the following chart showing the use of four idioms for “easy” in recent decades. First, I must ask, why is pie easy? Making a good crust is as easy as dunking two basketballs at once. And why are fish in a barrel? My choice for replacing the miserable “low-hanging fruit” is “can of…
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Feb 29
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Electricity Supply – Listen and Watch the Herd or Prepare for an Ugly Ending

Electricity Supply – Listen and Watch the Herd or Prepare for an Ugly Ending

By Energy Rant One Comment
Ross Shafer delivered the keynote speech at AESP’s 2016 National Conference in Phoenix a few weeks ago. Mr. Shafer is a former late night talk-show host/comedian, game show host, author, and speaker. His message for AESP was excellent. He was engaging and funny, but most importantly, he presented sound, valuable advice for business; specifically customer satisfaction and experience. I cannot recall a single thing of substance he said that I disagree with. In fact, I passed along much of his advice to our team at Michaels via The Daily, our employee-only blog. One area of advice from Mr. Shafer was:…
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Feb 22
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Clean Power Plan (CPP) III – The Coma Phase

By Energy Rant One Comment
Roughly a year and a half ago in Clean Air Act 111(d) – Machete Required, I outlined why the Clean Power Plan (CPP) was poorly constructed because it is unworkable under the Clean Air Act as written. Then, of course, earlier this year, a month ago to be more precise, I started to investigate how the final plan would work in the January 25th and February 1st posts. On February 9, at 10:58 AM, I replied to an internal email about a tangential subject of grid stability that the CPP would probably be upheld because Chief Justice Roberts has demonstrated…
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Feb 15
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saved energy

Cost of Saved Energy – Drop it and Give Me Twenty

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
I was planning to write about industrial efficiency and the crimes of opting out this week, but while searching for supporting data, I found other interesting stuff; namely the cost of saved energy by state and by year. In 2009, ACEEE published a paper, Saving Energy Cost Effectively: A National Review of the Cost of Energy Saved Through Utility-Sector Energy Efficiency Programs (short titles are not one of their strong suits). A few years later they published an updated paper for the 2014 Summer Study For Energy Efficiency in Buildings. This one was called, Still the First Fuel: National Review…
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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.

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