Lifetime Carbon Impacts

Lifetime Carbon Impacts

If we are counting on energy efficiency to account for a large part of reducing carbon emissions, we need to count lifetime savings accurately. Annual CO2 emissions in the US may be leveling off or declining, but CO2 lasts a very long time in the atmosphere and its...
Lifetime Carbon Impacts

Evaluating the Inflation Reduction Act

Earlier this month, Congress passed – and President Biden signed into law – the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest climate bill ever. While slimmed down and altered from the original House bill, the IRA (and, to a lesser extent, the Bipartisan...
Lifetime Carbon Impacts

Hidden Barriers to Energy Efficiency

At their core, energy efficiency programs exist to help the market overcome barriers preventing the adoption of energy-efficient equipment or behaviors. Some barriers, like the high first cost of equipment, are obvious and often targeted, but they may mask other...
Lifetime Carbon Impacts

The Case of the Wonky Solar Data

No matter the methodology, we calculate energy savings or production using data. Sometimes, however, the data is missing or appears to be an outlier due to a variety of reasons. When this occurs we need to figure out why and how to fix it. Let’s dig into a recent...
Lifetime Carbon Impacts

Decoding Code Compliance, Part 2

In Part 1, we covered what energy code programs do and different ways of measuring code compliance. In this part, we will examine the steps needed to estimate program savings. Code adoption and compliance change over time. To estimate savings, we must consider the...