Interestingly, several things collided last week resulting in a loud voice saying, “talk about the fuuuuture”, Yoda style. First we began by discussing our marketing theme for this fall’s AESP conference in Dallas. If you don’t have your tickets yet, get with the program! Next, came the stepping down of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. Finally, it was a follow up email from the IEPEC conference (see last week’s rant for details). What do these have in common? Read on. The first topic and actually the theme of this post is change. Like it or not, we live in globally…
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I spent last week at the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, IEPEC, as in, I-E-P-E-C to hard core evaluators or I-Peck for the rest of us. Ninety-five percent of the conference including content and networking was great. Of course with this being the Energy Rant, I will beat on the remaining 5%. Recapping, there are generally two portions of program evaluation: impact and process. Impact evaluation, which is what we at Michaels do, involves the assessment of savings (impacts) programs achieve, including what the measure actually saves (gross savings) and what impact the program had on the savings (net savings). …
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Natural gas utilities tend to howl about making EE goals because it is much more difficult to capture savings for natural gas than it is for electricity. With one giant exception, lighting, this isn’t really true and I do not agree. Lighting retrofit/replacement is indeed easy for a number of reasons: Utility DSM product managers and account managers understand it. Customers understand it. Lighting upgrades improve lighting brightness and color rendering. Some level of investigative analytical study is NOT required. With the exception of early T8 electronic ballast technologies, maintenance is reduced, at minimum because the customer has new equipment…
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As administrations and congresses come and go, one thing remains the same: “there is no clear energy policy”, and “we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil”. Neither one is ever addressed. First, what the heck is a clear energy policy anyway and are we sure we want one? When the government messes with any market, the result is always negative for consumers and in some cases bordering on catastrophe. The only exception I see is utilities, which lend themselves to monopolistic efficiency. You may need to lie down after that head-spinning oxymoron. But seriously, in order to have…
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I’ve spent most of my career in energy efficiency marketing and selling energy efficiency to clients and anyone who might listen. Come to think of it, I marketed and sold to a lot of people who didn’t listen, to be sure. So no one is safe. A major component is removing barriers; also known as excuses, and sometimes bad ones. Selling EE is very challenging but rewarding and it’s the way it should be rather than jamming laws down the gizzards of the public by the dysfunctional, corrupt, and clueless bunch in Washington. Last week a guy actually presented a…
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It has been quite a year for protests. From Glenn Beck (although he swears it wasn’t a protest) and Jon Stewart (ditto) taking up the entire National Mall in Washington, to the months long battle royale in the 85 square miles surrounded by reality – also known as Madison, WI. For what it’s worth, you can check out the spin in both directions regarding the recent jobs report and Wisconsin. More time is needed to draw any conclusions. The primary problem of course in all these cases, including the greased pig wrasslin match in Washington in recent weeks, is governments…
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A couple years ago I was attending an ACEEE conference and I was speaking with a gentleman who with his company was a program implementer. I remember him saying that program evaluators should always work for the regulators. If evaluators worked for the program implementer, which in many cases is the utility directly, the results would be biased. I thought, no way. There is no way our profession is to be swayed by the desire to not make waves with the client. As I say on our staff page I will tell people what they need to know, not what…
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Warning: I am not a CPA or tax attorney, and I do not have 63 years available to determine for myself that all contents of this rant are correct. A couple years ago I wrote an Energy Brief about the need for life cycle cost analysis to make the right decisions for selecting the best option for an energy project. Since that time, we haven’t exactly been living up to this ideal, in large part because we’ve been doing a lot of work for profit-driven enterprises. Life cycle cost analysis for non-profits is pretty easy. It includes first cost, borrowing…
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Many states have opt-out provisions for major consumers of energy so these consumers do not have to pay into EE programs. The reasoning typically goes something like this: They are major users of energy so they naturally are going to cut energy cost to increase profit; they can take care of themselves They shouldn’t have to provide outside subsidies to these programs They don’t participate in the programs so why should they have to pay in The facts are these concessions are required to get EE laws (bills) through legislatures and/or governors. Consider that typical opt-out regulations require that these…
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I’ve corralled a mishmash of rather preposterous short stories for the year end rant. This will be historic so be sure to pass it on to your enemies. Case 1 comes from Engineered Systems Magazine or ES Magazine. I was catching up on my stack of trade magazines over Christmas weekend (is this sick or what? – but it can be about as entertaining as National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation). September’s “Case in Point” features an energy-saving project for Bangor Maine’s Discovery Museum, delivered by Honeywell. An audit was followed by implementation of cost-effective measures. The audit was completed in 2008…
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