by Shelly Dolbeer | Sep 10, 2020 | Videos & Webinars
This webinar is a recording of a stakeholder engagement meeting hosted by the Minnesota Department of Commerce on September 9, 2020. The meeting is part of a series of stakeholder meetings focused on Electrification in Minnesota and include presentations from...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 10, 2020 | Energy Rant
I’m not in the electricity storage business, but I can recognize lousy ideas when I see them. Grid-scale battery storage is a bad idea. It will never be anything more than a frequency and voltage regulation technology, although I have to say these are critical...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 2, 2020 | Energy Rant
I’ve been doing a lot of program impact evaluation for the last few months. That comes with pluses and minuses. One of the minuses is that I needed to suspend writing this blog for a while. Pluses include problem-solving, working with staff throughout our...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 24, 2020 | Energy Rant
A few weeks ago, I observed a webinar [1]sponsored by the Advanced Energy Economy to help me triangulate what the next great trend(s) might be. That meshed well with the electric vehicles (EV) post of last week and this week. The webinar featured two electrification...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 17, 2020 | Energy Rant
The electric car (or vehicle / EV) may be the most captivating technology of my career. I panned EVs ten years ago with a Frivolous Novelty[1]. I implore you to go back and read that. Almost nothing has changed in ten years! The iPhone launched 13 years ago. Everyone...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 10, 2020 | Energy Rant
God, it’s great to be back writing again. On that note, here is a quote, “There’s an old saying: Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.” I’ve been under a rock all my life because I had never heard that one. It’s the opening line to this NIMBYism and...
by Jeff Ihnen | Feb 3, 2020 | Energy Rant
Hi. How’re you? Jeff Ihnen here. I’m back and almost live. I’ve been away on several temporary assignments that are starting to wind down. We are thrusting forth into the 11th year of the Energy Rant! Indispensable Thumbs Unless you have broken one, lost one, or had...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 24, 2019 | Energy Rant
Two weeks ago, in Natural Gas Savings – Traps and H Vacs we looked at some basic natural-gas-saving measures. The post was wildly popular, and I had a good time, so let’s do it again! We compared some aspects of natural gas end-uses and waste that compare to...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 10, 2019 | Energy Rant
I flipped open AESP’s[1] annual magazine to pick up a topic for this week. I chose the last article on natural gas programs. I’ve always found it interesting that folks perceive natural gas to be an enigma for finding savings. If natural gas is being used, the...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 3, 2019 | Energy Rant
You’ve been there – on the phone trying to get some help from a car dealership, appliance store, online retailer. The menu choices are unclear, especially for auto stores (hit zero). It makes me cringe when I hear my Mom say she called Dell for help with her computer....
