Ross Shafer delivered the keynote speech at AESP’s 2016 National Conference in Phoenix a few weeks ago. Mr. Shafer is a former late night talk-show host/comedian, game show host, author, and speaker. His message for AESP was excellent. He was engaging and funny, but most importantly, he presented sound, valuable advice for business; specifically customer satisfaction and experience. I cannot recall a single thing of substance he said that I disagree with. In fact, I passed along much of his advice to our team at Michaels via The Daily, our employee-only blog. One area of advice from Mr. Shafer was:…
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This post is brought to you by Midwest Energy News; in particular, the opinion piece, Time For Monopoly Reform in Minnesota. It is written by Tea Partier Debbie Dooley from Atlanta. You may have heard or read that the Tea Party and solar advocacy groups (a strange alliance) have been singing photovoltaic folk songs around southern campfires. I am not anti-renewable, but I am very much anti-misinform and mislead. That is what The Energy Rant is all about. To prove my love of renewables, as I was driving back from my mother’s over the Fourth of July weekend on a…
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Perhaps I am naïve, but to be more effective it seems interveners would do well to understand motives of profit-driven enterprises and their customers. Consider, for example, this recent article in Midwest Energy News lamenting CenterPoint Energy’s withdrawal from decoupling. You may recall a post I made eons ago where I described the perverse impact of decoupling on prices for consumers. Allow me to recap. Utilities have fixed cost of hardware and labor to deliver energy to customers – poles, wires, pipes, transformers, compressors, trucks, etc. This stuff makes up the rate base and fixed cost of energy delivery. They…
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