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Jeff Ihnen

May 27
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Energy Efficiency Under Attack – Stalin Would be Proud?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments
Last week I attended the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s (MEEA) annual meeting for its members in Chicago.  It was well worth my time and expense.  As one might guess, it featured sessions of accomplishments, organization metrics, and feedback sessions for improvement – what’s important to members.  I think many attendees would agree the premier session of the day was “Energy Efficiency Under Attack”, namely in the Midwest battleground states of Indiana and Ohio.  What an irony, as this has been the subject of a couple recent posts, The Case for Energy Efficiency – That Our Mothers Understand and Failing Energy…
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May 19
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Failing Energy Efficiency- From Russia, With Love

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments
A couple weeks ago, you may have noticed we published The Case for Energy Efficiency – That Our Mothers Understand not entirely out of coincidence, just before Mother’s Day.  That described how to keep messaging simple so common folk can understand the benefits.  This week we feature the opposite – how not to promote energy efficiency.  The first and dominant rule is to avoid anything that has a whiff of politics.I declare myself an armchair amateur political scientist having followed and read much about politics for more than 25 years.  The political spectrum is not a straight line in my…
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May 12
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Electric Utility- A CEO’s Many Bosses

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
I’ve come to realize over the course of many years that the electric utility business is fascinatingly challenging.  No other industry that I can think of has more bosses than an electric utility.  In fact, high ranking utility people promoted from Executive Vice President to President/CEO leave a job with one boss and accept a job with dozens of bosses. A utility must take orders from Washington.  Recently, the Supremes overturned a lower court ruling that effectively said, Michigan, you don’t have to listen to New Jersey to set limits on your emissions.  Now Mr. CEO, you do.The utility pleas…
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May 05
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The Case for Energy Efficiency – That Our Mothers Understand

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff 11 Comments
If energy efficiency programs are considered and measured to be a good thing in some states, why are they not good for all, or nearly all, states?  Even the utilities we work with in Minnesota and Iowa with programs since the mid 1980s believe in energy efficiency for their customers and their employing utilities.  I get the same vibe from California utilities, for another example.  However, like national elections, all eyes are presently on Ohio – a battleground state for energy efficiency. But this rant is about what happened in Indiana and how to combat it in Ohio.  In case…
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Apr 28
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Utility Death Spiral? The Duck has Your Back

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff 15 Comments
There is weekly, if not daily, chatter about the end of the monopolistic electric utility systems we have today.  They call it the utility death spiral, and it goes like this: Distributed generation, also known as DG, which includes rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems will compete directly with utility power. Utilities are stuck with fixed rate base for which they need to be paid through purchased energy from customers. Photovoltaic may produce competitively-priced energy for some customers after the bevy of incentives and tax breaks.  Home-generated electricity drives down the utility’s revenue. Utility raises prices to cover their fixed cost.…
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Apr 21
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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 14
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Efficiency by Wi Fi – and Other Tricks

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
The old cliché, “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it”, may be coming to energy efficiency portfolios everywhere.  It may be an unstoppable juggernaut that our industry will have little control over (pun alert).  Instead, it will drive implementers into ambulance chasing and drive evaluators whacky.  What is it?  Controls, especially Wi-Fi consumer control systems. Millenials, bear with me as I write like an old man, but I will avoid discussions of snow, hills, and walking to school (if you’re over 40 and from the Midwest, you know what I mean). 1970s: AM radio, broadcast…
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Apr 07
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Attribution and Net to Gross – Pop Tarts or Oatmeal?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments
Last week I attended the ACEEE National Symposium on Market Transformation in Baltimore.  Learning and information gathering from conference sessions are typically down the list of reasons I attend conferences.  This conference however turned out to be very beneficial on both of those counts.  In particular, the net-to-gross (NTG) football, as described in last August’s Energy Program Evaluation Asylum post, was uncased for another game.  This time I learned something. One session featured heavy doses of program attribution, and of course, the NTG football.  Speakers included Bob Wirtshafter from Wirtshafter Associates and Mike Messenger from Itron.  Both gentlemen demonstrated the…
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Mar 31
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Industrial Efficiency – Beyond the Librarian

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
Sometimes I go into writing a rant with a blank slate.  I’m not fired up about anything.  It’s true.  Then I reach for a report in my pile and start to read the executive summary.  The ideas start falling off the shelf into my cart.  This week’s post is actually sponsored by the Department of Energy:  Industrial Energy Efficiency: Designing Effective State Programs for the Industrial Sector (I think they could use some help with pithier titles). A few weeks back, I wrote about nonsensical reasons industrial customers want to opt out of energy efficiency programs.  That was specifically in…
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Mar 24
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Customer Engagement – Beyond Beaver Pelts

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I discussed behavior programs but in the larger sense, the fact that energy efficiency programs have traditionally treated people like animals.  They are treated like animals because they are essentially tricked into buying energy efficient appliances and doohickeys in exchange for cash rewards.  With some program exceptions, like custom efficiency and retrocommissioning, customers are not provided with information to make informed decisions. Technology and innovation move much faster outside the utility program space.  For example, nearly all credit cards provide some sort of cash back or other perks that can be equated to dollars.  I leverage my “free”…
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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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