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energy efficiency

energy storage

Energy Storage with Doug Houseman

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In this week's Energy Rant, Jeff Ihnen (CEO at Michaels Energy) interviews Doug Houseman (Principal Consultant at Burns & McDonnell) about energy storage. Doug is a leader and visionary in grid and utility modernization. You'll quickly get a sense of his wealth of knowledge as we take you through our interview-style conversation.
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buildings

The Simple Recipe to Fail-Safe, Healthy, and Efficient Building Programs

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Based on my victims' feedback, I am an above-average cook, but my internal modesty says, barely. To achieve such mediocrity, all you must do is follow the instructions and pay little attention. The next step to greatness, I’ve heard, is to weigh rather than measure things (cups, teaspoons, etc.). No. Thanks. Beyond that probably requires the Malcolm-Gladwell 10,000 hours to achieve excellence as a professional. Designing and constructing buildings is a lot like cooking, and I think most “efficient” buildings are in my categorical class of cooks: mediocre-plus. Unlike great amateur cooks, designers and builders need to be paid for…
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four horsemen

The Four Horsemen of the Rebound

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“Hey Honey – our energy costs are down, so let’s have another kid.” This is the absurd logic behind studies linked to a Utility Dive post last week. The subject is the retread canard of the rebound effect, specifically the hoax that if you use less energy, you use more energy. They even go so far as to claim that consumers drive their cars more when gas prices drop. Why were gas prices in the tank (pun alert) with oil prices bottoming out at minus $37 per barrel in April of 2020? Prices were low-to-negative because people weren’t driving, and…
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pay for performance

THE Successful Model for Pay for Performance

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Livin' it Up in Hotel California I’ve written about pay for performance (P4P) programs no less than six times in this blog. I’ll start with a recap of those posts and move the ball forward once again. We’re well within field goal range! In Tooling Pay for Performance, I wrote that energy models and dashboards with regression models showing savings performance or lack thereof provide the following Leatherman-like benefits. It provides leverage with visual evidence, so customer stakeholders do more and climb higher. It’s a vise-grip to maintain what was accomplished. It’s a hammer to “persuade” folks. It’s a screwdriver…
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Case Study in Energy Transition

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No one will confuse me with Simon Sinek, a great speaker, but one thing I can do is nail my timeslot. If I’m mindful of the time I have available, 20 minutes, etc., I will nail it – except one time. That was last fall as I was doing my fourth rendition of electrification for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute. I update my presentation every year for current data and trends because the audience deserves it. But I tried too much stuffing for that bird. After several practice runs, I was consistently 10 minutes over the time limit. I thought…
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Energy Demand Management

Energy Demand Management for Mad Dogs

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Does every decision boil down to a binary choice? A binary choice is a decision between two alternatives, like yes or no, and do or do not.  This applies to determining what ‘is’ and ‘is not’ a factor in decision making. For example, deciding that the color of a car you may be considering ‘is’ or ‘is not’ important is a binary choice. This is how we slice through the peanut butter, decide what matters, and get on with it. We narrow down and hone into what is essential. Binary decisions are primitive, as demonstrated in a December post featuring…
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zero net energy

Zero Net Cost for Zero Net Energy – Melt the Calf

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Have you ever thrown a cat into the deep end of a swimming pool? Neither have I, but I bet they wouldn’t like it. Likewise, status-quo program evaluators will not like what’s coming down the pike for several reasons, starting with one in this post for residential and commercial new construction programs. A few weeks ago, I read a post from fellow small-time blogger (speak for yourself, Jeff) Joel Gilbert. His topic was low carbon foods. He wrote, “But, I offer this observation :  I have never seen such a groundswell of enthusiasm around these ideas.  Perhaps it is being…
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Lithium is Not Nirvana

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I am typically afforded the freedom to chase rabbits as I write these posts, but last week my mission was to reflect on 2020 and forecast 2021. In the process of starting that, I chased a rabbit that is the subject of this post. It is as easy to shoot down ideas as it is to be negative because humans have a negativity bias, which means negative events have a greater impact on brains than positive ones. For example, I recently read that the joy of finding $20 in a coat pocket, say from a year ago, is overwhelmed by…
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energy industry predictions

Soothsayer Says: Eight Predictions for the Energy Industry

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If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing now. That quasi-cliché is why I have never had a New Year’s resolution, and I’m not going to start in 2021, but I can review the past and forecast (guess) the future. Soothsaying is part of my job, and I’m at least as accurate as next week’s weather forecast. At the start of 2020, we had just reorganized, defined who we are, what we do, and why we do it. Sounds simple, right? What is your personal purpose? What do you value? What makes you tick? Keeping it concise is very hard. Our…
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Baker’s Dozen Energy and Carbon Saving Tricks

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Do squeaky wheels get the grease? No. They get replaced (Peter’s principle). Adulators get dessert. That is the case this week as I had considerable positive feedback from last week’s post: 12 schemes for waste and carbon-reduction. I will move one step upstream of that pie chart that showed shares of carbon emissions by household. That was a page by globalstewards.org, featuring 20 ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Here are some of Global Steward’s recommendations. 1. Walk when your destination is within a two-mile radius. This is great, except it comes with a big non-energy penalty: time. This is…
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