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Oct 08
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Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff No Comments
When I was a kid, I liked to play games; board games, cards, video games, pinball, racing with an electric racetrack, and even golf with clubs on grass outdoors!  BTW, these things kick butt over any video game, any day.  Somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14, I lost interest in this crap.  Why?  Because life is enough game for me.  It’s all about competition, and I’d rather beat others on the court, field, or classroom doing real things with my own skills.  And now, it is business in which I compete. When I go to conferences or seminars,…
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Oct 01
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Opting to Make Money

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Investments, Utility Stuff No Comments
In many states that are relatively new to energy efficiency, legislators often cave to large energy users and allow them to opt out of programs because hey, they use a ton of energy and therefore, OBVIOUSLY to any moron, they control and manage these costs as well as any dunce could.  Why should they throw money at a program that won’t help them? Come to think of it, programs available to these large users in many places are dysfunctional, poorly conceived, and not thought through from the perspective of the customer, so I can see their point to some extent. …
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Sep 17
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Lessons from NYC Benchmarking

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
New York City recently completed its report for the benchmarking of all its “large” facilities, generally with square footage of 100,000 or greater.  The results of the study are not surprising.  You may be thinking, “Who cares about NYC?”  Answer: this post includes universal challenges with benchmarking whether it’s Batswana or the Yukon. The benchmarking was completed using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, which as far as I can tell ranks buildings by source Btu per square foot, otherwise known as energy intensity.  For example, it uses a factor of 3 for electricity, which is one over the efficiency of delivering electrical…
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Sep 10
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Delta Lambda Jamba Effect

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
I was recently pushed over the edge again by multiple opinion pieces declaring that energy efficiency is a waste of time and money because of rebound effect.  Rebound basically means that if consumers buy an efficient appliance, car, or light bulb, they will simply use it more and therefore save less, or even use more energy at the proverbial “end of the day”. First in this series was an opinion piece from a Cal State Fullerton professor published in The Wall Street Journal.  Below is my response to the journal: Robert J. Michaels’ commentary on August 20th suggests energy efficiency…
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Sep 04
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Free Riding Poachers

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about nationalizing pieces of energy efficiency programs, namely technical resource manuals from which energy impacts (savings) and measure costs are derived.  The post explained why this is a bad idea for a number of reasons.  This week features chaos at the state level. It seems states with their energy efficiency policies are parallel to people who go to Washington DC and operate in the alternate universe inside the beltway.  The longer they exist, the more schizophrenic and/or demented and/or dysfunctional they become. Utilities are forced, for lack of a better term, by regulators to meet…
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Aug 20
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Tea Party On, Dudes

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff No Comments
Jeff Erickson of Navigant Consulting presented an interesting paper at last week’s American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Summer Study for Buildings.  The title was, “Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Battle over Energy Efficiency.”  I thought it was just clever (aka bait and switch) advertising, but the presentation featured, almost exclusively, how the free market, small government tea party and the profit-bad, regulation-good occupiers might view energy efficiency. The tea party would favor consumer choice for incandescent light bulbs and gas guzzlers over government regulation of these common, and other uncommon for that matter, consumer goods. …
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Aug 13
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GHG and NG

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
E Source reported last week that green house gas (GHG) emissions are falling fast in this country, as shown in the chart nearby.  Emissions tanked with the economy in 2009, and as I recall, the summer of 2009 was also cool, resulting in lower electricity sales.  Even so, when adjusted for economic output, GHGs are falling fast. The reason for this is rather obvious if one follows the electricity market.  It is much easier to get a natural gas power plant approved for construction as compared to a coal-fired plant.  I have not done the analysis myself, but it is reported…
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Aug 06
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Nationalize EE – Boooo!

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff 2 Comments
The widget world of energy efficiency is governed by the Technical Resource Manual, or TRM.  A technical resource manual includes energy calculations requiring baselines and efficient equipment specifications, hours of use, and duty cycles.  It also includes cost differences for baseline and efficient equipment.  Costs and savings from TRMs are used across the board for mass market, and even in some cases large, far too large in my opinion, equipment. Technical resource manuals may be held at the state level, which may apply to all programs/utilities in the state, or at the utility level.  Some in our industry are advocating…
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Jul 23
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Billy Bob, Evaluation Virgin

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Retrocommissioning (RCx), Utility Stuff No Comments
It has been a while since I’ve written anything about programs, so here it goes.  Program evaluation provides about half our business, and much of that is verifying gross savings estimates, which are simply the original program-claimed savings.  Verifying custom projects, those that don’t fall into mass categories like light bulbs and air conditioners, are generally more interesting, at least from an energy analysis perspective.  Findings from the field can be follical (new word derived from folly) for any type of measure. Implementers of custom efficiency programs, especially implementers not accustomed to the evaluation process, can be especially entertaining.  In…
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Apr 16
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3 and Out

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Tax Stuff, Utility Stuff No Comments
The New Scientist published an article by an economist saying that now is the perfect time to implement “long-overdue environmental regulations requiring US power plants to reduce emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxic metals”.  And the added cost will be a boon to the economy.  That’s what the textbooks say, so it must be right! As the article states in one place, yes, retrofitting power plants will create jobs somewhere, and the higher cost will be passed on to consumers.  Do they equally offset on a macroeconomic level?  I severely doubt it but no one can prove that. In…
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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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