kilowatt Archives - Michaels Energy

Aug 24

Supercharging Behavior and the Four Dollar KiloWatt Hour

By Jeff Ihnen 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.…

Jun 16

Love0

Decoupling, Stupid

By Jeff Ihnen 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…