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demand side management

Oct 05
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GEBs The Final Chapter – Baby Steps!

By Energy Rant No Comments
This is my sixth and final post on Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs), including the great interview with Doug Scott (#5) of the Great Plains Institute. This week, I will wrap up with a mishmash of items in the DOE’s GEB Roadmap. As I start this wrap-up, what I wrote three years ago comes to mind - How About Some D in DSM? Here is the gist as it applies to GEBs today: I have always found it interesting that “demand-side management,” the term that is generally used synonymously with energy efficiency programs, includes virtually no demand management whatsoever. The term…
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Apr 21
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avoided costs

Answer: Avoided Cost – What’s the Question?

By Energy Rant No Comments
“Can I ask a question?” My response to that, in good company, is, “You just did. Would you like another chance?” Now that, my friends, is a paradox. As you ought to know, I’m preparing a mind-blowing three-hour course on decarbonization for AESP’s Spring Training. One conclusion: 100% decarb is going to take decades and it will be expensive and disruptive. A lot of progress has been made, but it has been easy for reasons I will explain next following this chart, which shows how decarb cost will soar as the percent reduction increases. Average CO2 emissions per kWh produced…
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Feb 18
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Stifling Impacts of Jurassic Evaluation Dogma

By Energy Rant One Comment
If efficiency programs were telephones, the evaluation community would still be using wall-mounted analog dial-ups rather than the iPhone. Yes, I’m going to tell you why programs are designed to be evaluated and not to be effective, part 2, herein. The following is the list of flaws in demand-side management theory, as presented last week. Efficiency must cost more than inefficiency Building energy codes are sacrosanct Efficiency has to be the primary factor in customer decision making Customers must “get their money back” The unfamiliar get fifty cents on the dollar Immortality is fantasy Last week we covered the first…
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Sep 04
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Xcel Energy Spending

The BQDM Rounding Error Solution

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week we took care of the seals, mountains, earthquakes, and crickets. This week we are advancing the discussion to cover the realities of demand-side management benefits. I know what it’s like to be short of time, all the time, so here is a super summary of last week’s post to bring you up to speed: Traditional efficiency programs, including 99% of those functioning today, get their savings by giving money to people in exchange for buying efficient widgets – like flipping sardines at clapping seals. Programs are designed around getting widgets installed and finding the next widget to fill…
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Jul 23
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How About Some D in DSM?

By Energy Rant No Comments
I have always found it interesting that “demand-side management,” the term that is generally used synonymously with energy efficiency programs, includes virtually no demand management whatsoever. The term “demand-side” simply means the energy consuming side of the energy transaction, whereas, “demand” is an instantaneous power draw from a device, building, feeder line, substation, power plant, or an entire power grid. To date, energy efficiency programs have primarily been in search of any kWh (energy) savings at any time. I call these kWh “dumb kWh”. So, we have dumb energy efficiency savings from a supposedly smart grid. Discuss. This has got…
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Jun 18
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trailing loads and forecasts

Mindbender: Efficiency Thrashes Supply

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
A couple months ago in Outside the Boxer, we considered efficiency as a resource to be compared with supply-side resources. In May, we challenged minds with We All Un-Bundle, suggesting that utilities get markups for services delivered over their infrastructure. Let’s advance these concepts! Efficiency – A Utility Perspective Utilities are slow to change for many reasons: Every interest group and intervenor wants more from them. They are rewarded for 30-40 year investments and not breakthroughs like iPhones. Customers demand reliability, resilience, and low cost above all else. Utilities have captive customers with few (but growing) options. They deliver a…
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Mar 19
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AMI – Good for Consumers; Good for Utilities

By Energy Rant No Comments
AMI, or advanced metering infrastructure, is rolling out across the land. This opens the door to a lot of cool things, including time of use rates, and it is a great enabler of electrification technologies. I’ve heard from utility executives or people involved with some portion of demand-side management departments within utilities that smart meters are a waste of money. Wow. They are going to be standing at the depot while the electrification train is barreling forward. I will save that topic for another day. Stay tuned. For background, here is a primer on AMI and here is a discussion…
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Feb 26
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Powering Lives at Lowest, Convenient Cost

By Energy Rant No Comments
I spent last week at the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) National Conference in New Orleans. Our industry is in transition once again. Substantial changes are on the horizon. Let’s recap some highlights and lowlights in the utility and demand side management industries the past few decades. As nuclear power was going to be too cheap to meter in the 1970s, the oil embargo, Jimmy Carter sweater speech, and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident resulted in a radically different direction for our energy future. On the heels of the above, and the global cooling threat (check out the…
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Mar 21
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Power Factor, Beer, Homes, Buckets, Bridges, and Ladders

By Energy Rant One Comment
The mélange of terms in the title of this post have been used by others to explain power factor. Most of them are awful analogies, and that is what sparked me to attempt to figure this out for myself and explain it, both with more relevance and clarity. But first, why does power factor matter? Because, contrary to what most people would say, bad power factor wastes energy and requires a larger capacity for generation and delivery of electricity. Mathematical Power Factor A couple weeks ago in Power Factor and Toenail Fungus, I provided a brief overview of what causes…
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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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All things energy. That’s our jam.

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

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