by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 16, 2017 | Energy Rant
Expressions Hair Design versus Schneiderman. That may sound like a softball or bowling league matchup, but it is actually a Supreme Court case that was heard last week. How in the world does this relate to energy efficiency? It is a case of behavioral economics and...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 9, 2017 | Energy Rant
Last week I wrote about understanding the customer and knowing what they want, whether the customer is the utility, regulator, or the end user of energy. Taking this a step beyond, the customer/client may not know what they want. For example, a hypothetical customer...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jan 3, 2017 | Energy Rant
Happy New Year! I am launching 2017 with this positive, upbeat Rant (my apologies to all my Oscar the Grouch fans). I have a go / no-go test for our company’s involvement with organizations: if we are going to be members of something, we are going to participate in,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Dec 19, 2016 | Energy Rant
A couple years ago at an AESP conference, we had a fascinating speaker and topic. It was one of those that had me thinking deeply and philosophically. The subject was technology and the future. The takeaway: every problem is either a technical problem or one of human...
by Jeff Ihnen | Nov 28, 2016 | Energy Rant
This week, we continue the discussion of ASHRAE Standard 211, Standard for Commercial Building Energy Audits. For ease of consuming this post, I suggest destroying 1/900,000th of a conifer by printing last week’s post, which includes a super summary of the approach,...
by Jeff Ihnen | Oct 31, 2016 | Energy Rant
It’s Halloween. Hundreds of thousands of people have to figure out a different costume because a clown plague has infected the country. While I don’t consume tabloid news, I did hear that in some cities, the clowns are getting beat up. I thought, now that isn’t a bad...
by Jeff Ihnen | Oct 10, 2016 | Energy Rant
Last week, we explored the state of EM&V 2.0 and its considerable, to say the least, constraints. This week, we look more intensely at fallacious “automated M&V”. Automated M&V is an oversold and over-hyped concept. When something is automated, it takes...
by Jeff Ihnen | Oct 3, 2016 | Energy Rant
Evaluation, Measurement and Verification 2.0, or EM&V 2.0, is a nerdy term coined in 2014, according to this blog by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP). The hype of EM&V 2.0, which I will explain later, is that it will automate measurement and...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 27, 2016 | Energy Rant
Earlier this year, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey of 2012. The prior release was 2003. The data do not paint a pretty picture for energy code effectiveness. Other data we are accumulating indicate...
by Jeff Ihnen | Sep 19, 2016 | Energy Rant
I have written about, and formally discussed, strategic energy management (SEM) so much I was sure I already wrote a Rant on the topic. After looking, I wrote about SEM and Yoda, Try Not, Do or Do Not, a year ago, but that was about measures and opportunities. This...
