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Jeff Ihnen

Strategic Energy Management – Try Not, Do or Do Not

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
A couple months ago, I co-authored an AESP Strategies article with Diana Husmann from Nexant and Teri Lutz from Tetra Tech. The subject was non-residential behavior programs. One of the undercurrents that was revealed to me in that process is that strategic energy management, SEM, seems to get pigeonholed as a “behavior program”. First, to digress a bit, every program is a behavior program. ACEEE summarizes these nicely in their Field Guide to Behavior Programs. A super summary of behavior elements are as follows, taken directly from that paper. Cognition programs focus on delivering information to consumers. Categories include general and targeted communication…
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total resource cost test

Total Resource Cost Test – Less than Total is Better??

By Energy Rant One Comment
I spent considerable time a year ago figuring out the various cost effectiveness tests that are applied to energy efficiency programs.  Since they are so bizarre, it took me almost an hour again to relearn it.  Thankfully, I documented it in language I can understand, and no one squawked about anything being wrong, so I’m going to believe it was right.  For a refresher, that was Energy Efficiency Benefit/Cost Tests and a Handful of Excedrin. I won’t recycle all that information, but in this Rant I will advance the discussion to demonstrate that the usual benefit/cost test, the Total Resource…
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rant

Thank You Rant Readers

By Energy Rant No Comments
I am off this week so I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the Rant, with a survey.  Thank you to all of our faithful readers!  We hope you’re still loving the Rant. Just as a reminder, the Energy Rant is intended to be a satirical and at times humorous but critical commentary on energy efficiency issues of the day. It contains supporting facts and valuable information regarding issues for local, utility, state, national and international organizations, programs, products and services. In many cases, the commentary takes a contrarian view to technologies, energy sources, policy and programs that are…
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building

Building Energy Simulations – More is NOT Better

By Energy Rant One Comment
Do you recognize the city shown?  It is Chicago.  How many twin buildings do you see?  Ok.  Consider downtown in your city.  How many twin buildings are there?  Ok. Why are they all different?  I would guess because if, say Donald Trump is going to build a $500-$1000 per square foot tower in the middle of all this, he wants an icon.  Wouldn’t you?  Besides, you’re not going to stop an architect from making it so anyway.  They want every building design to be a trophy for their wall.  Why not? Even schools, office buildings, college and university buildings, hospitals,…
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customer satisfaction

The Value of Customer Satisfaction – Subduing the Eddie Haskells

By Energy Rant No Comments
I did some research on features and benefits, in general.  A quick internet search of features and benefits revealed that definitions vary from one source to the other.  Indeed, we surveyed our own management team for features and benefits of the services and programs we provide.  I found that one person’s program description was another’s features. Going further, what I found was that benefits aren’t necessarily the end of the story to the buyer.  What is the value of the benefit, and how does that relate to customer satisfaction? Customer satisfaction is a benefit of energy efficiency programs to any…
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Selling Energy Efficiency; The Rare Bird Gets the Worm

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
This article from Greentech Media a few weeks ago provides a great follow-on subject for this post. The subject is selling energy efficiency, and it ties the combination of Home Runs in Residential HVAC(ironically published the same day as the Greentech article) and last week’s post, Trade Allies; Care for a Nail, Sir. The crux of the Greentech article, aside from explaining how we are doing a bad job selling energy efficiency, is how to do it right. Really, the subject spreads to commercial and industrial in almost exactly the same way. In summary: Wrong: Selling on “energy savings and…
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Trade Allies; Care for a Nail, Sir

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 5 Comments
Would you like to hear about the founding of Michaels?  Great!  Jim Michaels, founder and namesake of the company, and Dave Waffenschmidt, current President, had started a flourishing energy efficiency business within a local architect and engineering firm amid the waning days of the Carter administration.  The two of them, and one other fellow, left that firm to start Michaels because they saw an opportunity and focused solely on energy efficiency and improving building performance.  They had a burning passion for these things.  Efficiency and performance were the thing, not a thing, to tinker with as time permitted in an…
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The Warts of Combined Heat and Power, Puppies Not Included

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Having seen several interesting emails form ACEEE come through during my uber busy week, one of the first things I did as I sat down to pound out this blog Saturday was to take a look and see what they were all about.  This one discussing the virtues of the Clean Power Plan for manufacturers caught my eye.  That led to many resources for combined heat and power, which of course can be a great tool for fuel efficiency and GHG reductions.  That reminded me of this excellent evaluation paper reporting the findings of combined heat and power (CHP) installations. …
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Evaluators & Implementers; I Would Die 4 U

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
I’m not your lover.  I’m not your friend.  I am something you will never comprehend.  Beeeeewwww.  I would die 4 U. The wonderful energy efficiency industry in which we all (or most of us) work features program administrators/implementers and evaluators.  For a given portfolio, you may either implement programs or support these efforts, or you may evaluate how well the program is working in regard to impacts (savings), accuracy, customer satisfaction, and a slew of other things.  In no-man’s land, or the DMZ, there exists the incredibly squishy things like potential studies and market effects studies.Any of the couple dozen…
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Home Runs in Residential HVAC Savings

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments
When talking about energy efficiency, one needs to be careful to not spend too much time discussing California – because people not from California DO NOT WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT!  (yes, they shout)  However, the rest of the nation can use lessons learned from bleeding edge policy, and even research, in California. Whenever I visit California I think, “What else does this state have for EE opportunities?  They have been running aggressive programs for eons.  Haven’t they done everything yet?” Heck no.  They suffer the same widget focused, human boondoggled programming the rest of us have.  What do I…
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