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ground source heat pumps

Dec 13
Love6

Demand Management for Good

By Energy Rant No Comments
The last few posts featured an overview and complete report card on load management to get beyond net zero to real zero, a term I discovered last week. As promised, I will describe some permanent peak load reduction opportunities this week. Like many efficiency solutions, blocking and tackling approaches are the most effective. Peak Load Reduction – New Construction I’m going to stick with some big hitters. A person could write forever on this topic. Home Envelope Single-family homes must be super-insulated to minimize heating loads in cool/cold climates. The cartoon below provides a nice example of super-insulated versus code…
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Jul 27
Love0
Black man working on desktop computer

Emerging Technology v Disruption

By Featured Energy Rant No Comments
Hi folks! We’re picking up from last week’s post in which we examined three vital elements for advancing technologies from successful pilots to mainstream acceptance and market penetration. They are: Makin’ money – it must be profitable from the manufacturer through the point of sale to the end-user. Cool – getting market penetration is much easier when customers show off their new thing to their sphere of colleagues, friends, and neighbors. Simple – end-users of the product should understand the product and have no surprises like, why is my water heater blowing cold air? Pilot Results I estimate the vast…
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Apr 21
Love0

Heat Pumps – Not a Weapon of Mass Destruction

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
In the 1970s, before STAR WARS, my childhood fantasy sci-fi favorite was Planet of the Apes.  Like STAR WARS, there were about five movies in the series, but I only remember the story lines of the first two.  Three guys travel through time in a space ship, supposedly light years away.  They land on a planet that is actually California, ironically (can tell from the landscape, and hey, movies were once made in California).  It is several centuries into the future as it turns out, and on the Planet of the Apes, the apes talked (in English of course) and…
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Apr 22
Love0

Demand Side Market Transformation

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I was reading a couple regulatory dockets; one by a citizen and another by an intervener.  They made some good points, including a situation of being locked out of the market in one’s own state, to which I replied, “Welcome to the party.”  Both dockets had a ring of “market transformation”. Our friends at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) define market transformation as, “The strategic process of intervening in a market to create lasting change in market behavior by removing identified barriers or exploiting opportunities to accelerate the adoption of all cost-effective energy efficiency…
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Jan 16
Love0

Replacing the Burger

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Sustainability 2 Comments
The race is on to develop and deliver next generation successful energy efficiency programs.  There is indeed innovation in the marketplace.  The days of what I call “hamburger selling” will end, probably in the next decade.  Selling EE in these cases is like selling hamburgers – who can sell the most and the cheapest hamburgers that people will eat.  The product is unsophisticated – lighting, primarily.  The market is huge and opportunities ubiquitous.  Marketing and selling the burger is the name of the game and will be for a few more years. In the past five years, energy efficiency has…
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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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