by Jeff Ihnen | Nov 20, 2017 | Energy Rant
Last week’s post about utility innovation and the need for legislative reform for a modern grid was a big hit. Thank you. This week, as promised, I will advance the discussion to provide some ideas for modernizing legislation and utilities to catch up with the times....
by Jeff Ihnen | Nov 6, 2017 | Energy Rant
This year ACEEE published a three-part series on why people and companies invest in energy efficiency. First, they provide some guesstimates of energy efficiency investment in the United States. Their researched estimates vary from $60 billion to about $120 billion,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Oct 16, 2017 | Energy Rant
A couple weeks ago in Renewable Energy, Bad Parents, and Strawberries, I wrote that the value of an electrical generating resource depends a little on how cheaply it can produce energy (kWh), but a LOT on when and the (new word alert) dispatchability of the resource....
by Jeff Ihnen | Oct 9, 2017 | Energy Rant
Author’s Note: Mike Frischmann here. I’m doing my best Jeff Ihnen impression and filling in for the Rant this week. Your regular dose of Jeff will return next week. Nuclear power plants have fallen on hard times. There has been a dearth of new builds in this country...
by Jeff Ihnen | Oct 2, 2017 | Energy Rant
If you enjoyed the greatest modern decade of sports, when MJ went six for six in the NBA finals, you would remember this McDonald’s commercial nearby. In it, Larry challenges Michael to a game of trick shots for Michael’s Big Mac and Fries. (I don’t know why my...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 25, 2017 | Energy Rant
In my Personal Finance class as an undergraduate, our instructor used the term diworsification[1] for large stalwart companies. Diworsification occurs when a company buys another company it knows nothing about and isn’t complimentary to the core business. Utilities...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 18, 2017 | Energy Rant
Last week, in a moment of weakness, I was on my Pinterest board (is that what it’s called?), when I came upon this excellent tip sheet from a marketing blog[1]. I noted that the “emotional” alternatives to the “intellectual,” bloated phrases were simpler with fewer...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 5, 2017 | Energy Rant
This Rant post is propelled by AESP goers. Several colleagues and I attended AESP’s summer conference for technology in Toronto last week. We landed numerous positive comments about this blog; some from people I don’t know or never met. I greatly appreciate these...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 31, 2017 | Energy Rant
Everyone has applied for health insurance[1], and many of you have applied for life insurance. Anyone over, oh, 40, 50, or for sure 60, knows health flaws start to accumulate like the dumpster’s worth of unwelcome gifts, used shoes, and outdated clothes for those of...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 24, 2017 | Energy Rant
Thank you to Mike Frischmann (our Director of Evaluation Engineering) for contributing to this week’s Rant. Eight hundred pound gorilla alert! Energy efficiency program evaluation “best practices” need a big overhaul. I am not talking about best practices for doing...
