Jeff Ihnen, Author at Michaels Energy

Dec 12

Cooling Embedded Data Centers – How To, and Not To

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant One Comment

I recently reviewed an energy colonoscopy report aimed at saving energy for a small hospital’s data center – an embedded data center. Many building types can have substantial embedded data center loads including schools, office buildings, banks, and government. Connected data center loads vary from a few kilowatts to perhaps 50 kW. You can do your own research on energy saving opportunities in data centers. Here is one from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab that covers fourteen energy-saving opportunities, but it’s missing one: the giant canacorn custom measure that exists for nearly every embedded data center. My point in this post…

Dec 05

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Political Earthquakes and Snowflakes

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

In case you haven’t noticed, the Energy Rant is rebellious. It doesn’t add to the resonate frequencies of our industry’s echo chamber. Strength, resilience, and long-term success require bravery of leaving one’s comfort zone, and frankly, spending most of one’s time in the uncomfortable zone.Do the words snowflake, cocoa, Teddy Bears, Play-Doh and cry-ins have new meaning to you? The answer is, probably. This is not the way to get things done, or for that matter, make any difference whatsoever in one’s mission. Most people claim to hate politics – the rough and tumble of it; the name calling, the…

Nov 28

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Energy Audits and Complication Proclivity Syndrome

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

This week, we continue the discussion of ASHRAE Standard 211, Standard for Commercial Building Energy Audits. For ease of consuming this post, I suggest destroying 1/900,000th of a conifer by printing last week’s post, which includes a super summary of the approach, process, and contents of the three levels of energy audits in one table. The Nerd’s Arms Race One thing is certain regarding human nature: people love to complicate the hell out of things. Consider the tax code, code of federal regulations, and any part or level of government. The private sector follows similarly, maybe with different reasons. For…

Nov 21

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The Results of Your Energy Colonoscopy Are In

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Last week I was working on corporate tasks, so I needed to go into my vault of gems for pontification. The subject that emerged is energy audits and certifications, specifically from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The document is the Standard for Commercial Building Energy Audits, Standard 211P. It was up for public review in August of this year. There are a couple of things our industry has tried to unsuccessfully accomplish over the years. One is drop simple payback as a means to communicate financial benefits of implementing energy efficiency (or any) projects. This…

Nov 14

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Regulating Deregulation and Wind’s Other Big Subsidy

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant 3 Comments

Last week we examined the startup of deregulation, why a competitive market for electricity is difficult and early failures. This week, we look at the price impacts and some long-term implications of deregulation. It seemed to me that deregulation of the electricity market had been a disaster: bankruptcies, soaring prices, and most recently, stranded baseload assets. There was a lot of evidence in that, but lately, prices have improved, but other challenges are emerging. Deregulation’s Impact on Pricing I realized that searching for comprehensive data showing the impact on electricity costs for regulated versus deregulated is impossible. Lucky for you,…

Nov 07

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Deregulation – The Hindenburg and Deregulation

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant One Comment

The Rant: to boldly go where no man has gone before. Watch what you wish for. You might get it. Now that I’ve ripped off a line from a TV and movie series I’ve never watched and plopped down a cliché, it’s time to answer where I’m coming from. Politics on the day before Election Day. Associated government policy. The play I’ve seen in multiple forms, like a 1970s cop show where Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch, Cannon, Barnaby Jones , CHiPs, et al, always get their guy in the end of every episode. The opposite happens to corporations as…

Oct 31

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Benchmarking Clowns

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant One Comment

It’s Halloween. Hundreds of thousands of people have to figure out a different costume because a clown plague has infected the country. While I don’t consume tabloid news, I did hear that in some cities, the clowns are getting beat up. I thought, now that isn’t a bad idea, but I wouldn’t advise that. When I was a kid, Halloween antics included dozens of mushy tomatoes and cucumbers left behind in the garden. These have the impact of water balloons, and they make a fine mess. For this post, I referenced my program booklet for ACEEE’s 2016 Summer Study on…

Oct 17

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Residential Demand Charges; Harpooning Red Herring

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

On the one hand, this article from Utility Dive, The flaws in the utilities’ push for residential demand charges, had me shaking my head left and right in disagreement. On the other, not so much considering Solar City’s Chief Policy Officer co-authored the article. The article suggests that rather than using demand charges for residential customers, whether they generate renewable energy (solar) or not, utilities should use time-of-use rates instead. Time-of-use rates are a step in the right direction, but demand rates are still more equitable. Electricity Bills For new readers, here is a quick overview of various ways utilities…

Oct 10

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Automated M&V – In Your Dreams

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant No Comments

Last week, we explored the state of EM&V 2.0 and its considerable, to say the least, constraints. This week, we look more intensely at fallacious “automated M&V”. Automated M&V is an oversold and over-hyped concept. When something is automated, it takes inputs (data) from various sources, often hundreds of sources, with high frequency, maybe by the second or on a Hertz (many times per second) scale. Then the brains of the automated doohickey compute and translate the data into solutions or outcomes. For buildings of all types, from single family homes to large commercial and industrial facilities, automated systems are…

Oct 03

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Evaluation, Measurement and Verification 2.0; A Whale Bus or an Airbus?

By Jeff Ihnen Energy Rant 2 Comments

Evaluation, Measurement and Verification 2.0, or EM&V 2.0, is a nerdy term coined in 2014, according to this blog by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP). The hype of EM&V 2.0, which I will explain later, is that it will automate measurement and verification, putting us engineers out of business. This is not going to happen anytime soon. Definition 2.0 The definition of EM&V 2.0 boils down to using utility meter interval data, typically hourly or sometimes every 15 minutes, or maybe even 5 minutes, to disaggregate and measure impacts from energy efficiency measures. One could consider that EM&V 2.0 is…

Cooling Embedded Data Centers – How To, and Not To

Political Earthquakes and Snowflakes

Energy Audits and Complication Proclivity Syndrome

The Results of Your Energy Colonoscopy Are In

Regulating Deregulation and Wind’s Other Big Subsidy

Deregulation – The Hindenburg and Deregulation

Benchmarking Clowns

Residential Demand Charges; Harpooning Red Herring

Automated M&V – In Your Dreams

Evaluation, Measurement and Verification 2.0; A Whale Bus or an Airbus?

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