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behavior programs

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.…
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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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Supercharging Behavior and the Four Dollar KiloWatt Hour

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
Google search tells me that I have never used the word “hoopla” in an Energy Rant.  Here goes.  There is a great deal of hoopla in the industry for behavior programs.  Last week, AESP featured a brown bag webinar – Current and Future Trends for Behavior Change Energy Efficiency Programs.  It is so new, it isn’t yet available in the AESP library, at least as I write this.  Now that I mention it, the other half of our subcommittee produced a Strategies newsletter article for commercial and industrial behavior programs, coming next month.  Don’t take your eye off the inbox.…
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Customer Engagement – Beyond Beaver Pelts

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I discussed behavior programs but in the larger sense, the fact that energy efficiency programs have traditionally treated people like animals.  They are treated like animals because they are essentially tricked into buying energy efficient appliances and doohickeys in exchange for cash rewards.  With some program exceptions, like custom efficiency and retrocommissioning, customers are not provided with information to make informed decisions. Technology and innovation move much faster outside the utility program space.  For example, nearly all credit cards provide some sort of cash back or other perks that can be equated to dollars.  I leverage my “free”…
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