by Jeff Ihnen | Aug 8, 2016 | Energy Rant
Energy is a commodity, and like all commodities, it is wise to hedge risk; not go the other way and place bets. Unless you are a certain presidential candidate with privileged information on cattle futures, I would stay away from betting, er investing in, commodities...
by Jeff Ihnen | Aug 1, 2016 | Energy Rant
Per the Energy Services Coalition, energy service companies (ESCOs) that deliver energy savings performance contracts do the following: Identify and evaluate energy-saving opportunities Develop designs and specifications for construction Manage the project to...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 18, 2016 | Energy Rant
Constant, 60 Hertz, 120/208 Volt, 277/480 Volt power, 99.999% of the time. That’s it. That is all electric utilities need to supply their customers. Like Porsche’s slogan, “There is no substitute,” a utility’s slogan should be, “There is nothing else[1].” This post...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jul 11, 2016 | Energy Rant
Robert Borlick writes in Public Utilities Fortnightly that FERC Order 745 is “one of the worst orders FERC has ever produced” – “a time bomb for electricity consumers”. Whoa! I better sharpen my axes. That is a more lethal statement than I would even write, and it...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 20, 2016 | Energy Rant
What is the purpose of the Clean Power Plan? To reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030? No. It has major flaws for actual, as in reducing tons of carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere, but I will come back to that later. As reported in Clean Power Plan...
by Jeff Ihnen | Jun 6, 2016 | Energy Rant
Last week, I was commenting on some retro-commissioning findings, and I was considering demand savings estimates versus energy savings estimates. A colleague asked, “If you are aware of any energy versus demand papers I would like to know more.” I was informed that...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 31, 2016 | Energy Rant
Every kilogram of marijuana produced has a carbon bigfoot print of 4.3 metric tonnes (4.7 tons) of CO2. Marijuana production (U.S) consumes the annual electricity production of 1.7 million homes. Marijuana production consumes 1% of the nation’s electricity, and it’s...
by Jeff Ihnen | May 9, 2016 | Energy Rant
There are certain energy efficiency programs that we are never going to pursue – all those that are in the late majority and laggard stages. Those ships left the pier 10-15 years ago, and we are not going to attempt to catch them. In two words, they are widget...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 28, 2016 | Energy Rant
A few weeks ago in Cost of Saved Energy, I received some great feedback and a few questions. The questions involved energy efficiency potential studies and what are best practices. You know what they say about thinking outside the box – in this case I don’t know what...
by Jeff Ihnen | Mar 14, 2016 | Energy Rant
It’s about time I got back to my stack of research reports, and I have a good one this week to write about: Distributed Generation: Cleaner, Cheaper, Stronger, by the Pew Charitable Trusts, October 2015. First off, let’s compare brilliant efficiency versus sexy...
