by Michaels Energy | Jun 5, 2024 | The Big Why
When I was asked a while back to be a guest writer for this blog, it’s not surprising that my ideas kept drifting toward Evaluability Assessments. Anyone who has worked with me knows that I’m a planner and I like to be prepared. (Dare I say over-prepared.) Full...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 4, 2024 | Energy Rant
A recent Realclearwire.com article noted that since 2021, the cumulative effect of persistent inflation has reduced Americans’ purchasing power by 19%. Since 2021, grocery prices have increased by 21%, gasoline prices have increased by 47%, shelter costs have...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 28, 2024 | Energy Rant
I have detected a pattern unfolding across multiple large energy efficiency portfolios: commercial and industrial prescriptive programs are struggling mightily. Why is this? My hypothesis was that we cycled through two or three rounds of lighting upgrades: From T-12...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 21, 2024 | Energy Rant
A couple timely articles and posts have dropped since I reintroduced virtual power plants (VPPs) last week. First, I’ll share a LinkedIn post from Matt Golden, CEO of Recurve. He wrote: “VPPs being defined as dispatchable loads only, is just plain wrong....
by Jeff Ihnen | May 14, 2024 | Energy Rant
Virtual power plants (VPPs) represent a considerable slice of the clean energy race these days, and for a good reason: policy continues to favor intermittent renewable energy supply over baseload nuclear and dispatchable natural gas assets. Load needs to follow...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 6, 2024 | Energy Rant
Think you’re a climate change genius? Strap in and prepare for whiplash. To close out last week’s post, I referenced a Forbes article, Green Hydrogen’s Hype Hits Some Very Expensive Hurdles, which seeded the roots for this week’s Energy Rant....
by Jeff Ihnen | Apr 29, 2024 | Energy Rant
As a glutton for punishment (I look forward to getting past sciatica so I can run marathons again), I tasked myself with getting to the technical bottom of this article from Utility Dive: Energy storage for grid reliability can increase carbon emissions: University of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Apr 23, 2024 | Energy Rant
A year ago, I introduced the mantle curve to illustrate California’s overgeneration of solar power and the resulting need for curtailment. In 2022, California’s scoping study set a target for an additional 60 gigawatts (GW) or 60,000 megawatts (MW) of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Apr 16, 2024 | Energy Rant
In this week’s rant, we are excited to include an epilogue written by Michaels Energy employee, Andrea Salazar. Read on to hear her story! In 2023, I wrote that Americans are moving into regions susceptible to wildfires, heat, droughts, and floods because...
by Jeff Ihnen | Apr 9, 2024 | Energy Rant
It’s been a little over a year since I reported on grid attacks, mainly of the physical type but also of the cyber attack stripe. Every connected device, including distributed energy resources, adds surface area for an attack. The Wall Street Journal recently provided...
