Skip to main content
search
All Posts By

Jeff Ihnen

Jan 13
Love0

Wind Chill – Baah – In Yo Face

By Energy Rant, Uncategorized No Comments
We just experienced the longest and coldest snap of winter weather in many years.  Here in southwest Wisconsin, the element that made this snap different from any I can remember since I’ve lived here for the past 18 years was the combination of wind and cold temperatures for an extended period of time.  And of course that means wind chill.  Some people think wind chill is a bunch of malarkey.  I think they all live south of the Mason Dixon line.  Having grown up in wind ally, Minnesota, I have a tremendous respect for the forces of nature: winter cold,…
Read More
Jan 06
Love0

Photovoltaic (PV) Electricity Generation: A Melange of (my) Gibberish

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
I don’t know much about renewable energy in the form of photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation, other than its efficiency is about 10% from solar radiation to electricity.  I’ve collected a mélange of articles that each seem to have interesting, if not humorous, short stories. First we have the Crips and Bloods of political adversaries; liberal groups like the Sierra Club recruiting Tea Partiers to promote rooftop PV installations in the arenas of politics, regulatory agencies, and with utilities.  The punch line: Promoting PV is good for competition.  Pause for a laugh break. Ok. A couple regulatory issues were being considered…
Read More
Dec 30
Love0

State-Run Programs: The Potemkins

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
This week, I was handed a layup via this opinion piece from a Montanan.  He describes “verification and measurement” as a “cottage industry of consultants  running around figuring out what light bulbs end up in what rooms and what their average hours of use will be. They compile this info, run it through a bunch of formulas and computer programs.”  The evaluation of Northwestern Energy’s programs resulted in them being ordered by the PSC to refund ratepayers $3 million of cost recovery.  My first point is he should be grateful that someone pointed this out.  However, his solution, state-run programs,…
Read More
Dec 23
Love0

Showrooming – Not for Energy Efficiency

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
A few weeks ago, a reader of this post commented that she often doled out free advice regarding energy efficiency at parties – er, at parties she doled out free advice re energy efficiency. Which reminds me, if I’m in a room of non-geeks, you know, normal people, and describe what I do, suddenly they need another drink or a trip to the lady’s room. For this objective, being a veterinarian would be far more beneficial. But back to the comment of free advice, my response was, “Don’t be showroomed.” I would bet that the word showroom, as a verb,…
Read More
Dec 16
Love1

Home Heating – Blofeld Bald Head Would Blush

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
There are certain energy efficiency claims that, for an energy nerd, would appear as a spaceship flying onto the radar screen a la James Bond, You Only Live Twice. The hair on the back of the neck starts to twitch – know what I’m sayin’? When I saw this headline – 6 Energy-Saving Portable Electric Space Heaters - cue the SPECTRE spaceship eating spaceships coming on the screen and closing fast.  But first, the author of this article talks about wasteful fireplaces. I guess, yes, if it’s a big 1950s walk-in fireplace, but these are fighting words. I have never…
Read More
Dec 09
Love0

Energy Efficiency Potential and the Low Hanging Disease

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments
When I first started working at Michaels, still in my 20s, my workdays usually ended around 5:15, and since I was allergic to rolling out of bed before 6:00 AM, I would run after work in La Crosse.  I started running the trails of Hixon Forest, a very nice park on the edge of town with steep traverses and varying terrain that was sometimes easy on joints and in other places treacherous.  One night I tripped on a tree root that protruded from the surface of the trail.  I did a face plant and got something between a scratch and…
Read More
Dec 02
Love0

The Ultimate Consumer Behavioral Program?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
With a long weekend to prepare this rant, I'm taking a bit of a house cleaning approach and it's fitting because this week I'm talking about residential energy efficiency programs. Residential programs are certainly not something Michaels plans to get into but we do occasionally get involved with some residential program evaluation. If you know anything about residential programs you've heard of Opower. Their flagship product is the home energy report, which includes mailed reports to virtually all residential customers. The report compares participants to neighbors and against themselves last year or the month before. The mailers include energy saving…
Read More
Nov 25
Love0

Commercial and Industrial Custom Efficiency, Entrails to Turkey Dinners

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
In the past week or two, we evaluated whether or not we wanted to respond to a request for proposal to deliver a commercial and industrial (C&I) custom efficiency program.  The metrics of the RFP were doomed to a disservice for this particular utility’s customers, and therefore, of course we passed.  What do I mean? The project term was one year.  In that year, the program needed to be designed and promoted, customers needed to be recruited, projects developed, AND implemented within the year.  Give me a break!  Here again, large C&I is treated like an upstream program for LEDs…
Read More
Nov 18
Love0

De-Risking Energy Efficiency – From Both Sides

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Recently I have been preparing a presentation on a broad array of energy efficiency issues for executives and facility managers of large commercial and industrial facilities.  I was wisely advised by the utility product manager to keep it engaging and interactive.  I think I’ve whined in this blog before about how I despise dopey group exercises.  Sorry, can’t make it.  I have a teleconference.  I have a plane to catch.  I think my tuberculosis may be flaring up. So instead, I am thinking, as was also suggested, that rather than sending small groups at this session into the corner to…
Read More
Nov 11
Love0

Market Transformation in Wonderland

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
I just completed my draft of the forthcoming paper titled, “Know-How and the Incessant Energy Diet”, for the AESP 2014 National Conference.  In preparation for that, I thought, this is more work than writing Energy Rant blog posts because I have to scrounge for expert research to back my assertions because “this is the way it is – trust me”, isn’t good enough for a published paper.  Fortunately, I found plenty of ammo to make my point in a couple evaluation publications including this one conducted by our friends at Research into Action regarding the Southern California Edison Retrocommissioning program. …
Read More

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.

Subscribe for Expert Insights
Close Menu