by Jeff Ihnen | Apr 4, 2021 | Energy Rant
In this week’s Energy Rant, Jeff Ihnen (CEO at Michaels Energy) interviews Doug Houseman (Principal Consultant at Burns & McDonnell) about energy storage. Doug is a leader and visionary in grid and utility modernization. You’ll quickly get a sense of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 24, 2021 | Energy Rant
Based on my victims’ feedback, I am an above-average cook, but my internal modesty says, barely. To achieve such mediocrity, all you must do is follow the instructions and pay little attention. The next step to greatness, I’ve heard, is to weigh rather than...
by Michaels Energy | Mar 17, 2021 | The Big Why
I love explaining things with diagrams. One thing I have really missed working from home over the past year is not being able to illustrate ideas on a whiteboard in discussions with colleagues[1]. Over the past month, there have been several instances where I needed...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 17, 2021 | Energy Rant
“Hey Honey – our energy costs are down, so let’s have another kid.” This is the absurd logic behind studies linked to a Utility Dive post last week. The subject is the retread canard of the rebound effect, specifically the hoax [sic] that if you use less energy, you...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 10, 2021 | Energy Rant
Livin’ it Up in Hotel California I’ve written about pay for performance (P4P) programs no less than six times in this blog. I’ll start with a recap of those posts and move the ball forward once again. We’re well within field goal range! Previously, I wrote that...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 3, 2021 | Energy Rant
In this week’s Energy Rant, we’re spicing things up with a recording – rather than a blog post – of some hot topics in the energy industry. Tune in to listen to an off-the-cuff recording spurred by the tragedy in Texas. Be prepared to dive into...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 24, 2021 | Energy Rant
Last week when the Rant “went to press,” which is to say, when I wrote it Saturday, the arctic blast was merely a cold shot of weather like I have experienced dozens of times. I didn’t start seeing the chaos in the south until Monday. It was an avoidable tragedy...
by Michaels Energy | Feb 17, 2021 | The Big Why
Welcome back to the Challenges of Estimating NTG, where we explore the challenges of assigning a numeric counterfactual value to a complex decision-making process. Part 1 discussed the baseline in free-ridership questions to determine what would have happened in the...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 17, 2021 | Energy Rant
It’s been cold here in the Midwest. In ten days in La Crosse, WI, where I am, the average low was -13.7F, average high, 4.3, and the average of averages over the ten days was -4.7F. We smashed one daily record. There have been no all-time lows, but this is a grind. In...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 10, 2021 | Energy Rant
No one will confuse me with Simon Sinek, a great speaker, but one thing I can do is nail my timeslot. If I’m mindful of the time I have available, 20 minutes, etc., I will nail it – except one time[1]. That was last fall as I was doing my fourth rendition of...
