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incentive

Apr 18
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Behavior Score

Burning Behavior Barricades Down

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, we briefly introduced an inquisitive concept: what is an incentive for, and who should get it? The rest of the post was consumed with a true story that could be called a merry-go-round of behavior that whipsawed a customer’s energy use over a period of several years. Quantifying Behavior Barricades Every program has some level of behavior nudging. The chart illustrates my first shot for estimating the relative dimensions of behavior barricades that must be overcome for various buckets of programs. The program type requiring the least behavior that I can think of is an upstream incentive program.…
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Mar 08
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Nicht Tee Kugel, Dos

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
This week I am testing an additional medium for the The Energy Rant; the cartoon.  Click here to try it out.  Send email comments with your thoughts regarding this mechanism to me at jli@michaelsenergy.com. Major barriers to EE for large commercial and industrial end users include; Lack of time Lack of expertise Lack of capital Risk aversion If you don’t think end users are short on availability, just ask them.  Most end users don’t have time to commit to energy efficiency projects and most of the rest think they don’t have time.  The ones who really don’t have time get…
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Jun 16
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Decoupling, Stupid

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff 2 Comments
One way the utility business works like the rest of the economy is that it sells its products/commodities at a price that is higher than the cost of production, on average.  The more utilities sell, the greater their gross profit.  This is at odds with utilities’ incentive to save energy with energy efficiency programs.  As a result, some utility executives are opposed to energy efficiency programs.  That is a short-sighted view but that’s a story for a different day. As a result of this dichotomy, a pricing mechanism known as decoupling has been developed.  This NREL paper gives a pretty…
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Jun 08
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Horse and Buggy EE Programs

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff No Comments
In many states, energy efficiency programs are meeting annual savings goals and their incentive cash is depleted in a fraction of the year.  States where energy efficiency programs are a new offering are especially quick to meet goals.  These states include Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.  These states rely heavily on lighting, which accounts for somewhere in the range of 90% of the total savings.  Even mature states like Wisconsin and California still get well over half their savings from lighting and other prescriptive measures (rebates).  Wisconsin surpassed goals and ran out of incentives last program year. There are many ways…
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All things energy. That’s our jam.

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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