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Jun 29
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Lost Revenue Adjustment; One Patch in the Quilt

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
This week, I dive into something I have wanted to know more about for some time: efficiency program funding mechanisms.  This post is based on a recent paper released by ACEEE, Valuing Efficiency: A Review of Lost Revenue Adjustment Mechanisms. Utilities must be allowed to make enough money to draw required investor capital, debt and equity, to fund their operations.  Energy efficiency programs are funded by ratepayers, one way or another – not out of shareholder charity.  All states with programs have some sort of transparent, although usually incomprehensibly confusing, means for cost recovery or lost revenue recovery. Although the ACEEE…
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Jan 19
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Energy Code Compliance; Any Relation to Performance?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments
Last week, I received a late Christmas package in the form of an opportunity to throw a pitch for code compliance that would actually move the needle.  This will be at the AESP National Conference in Orlando.  I owe a substantial thank you to ACEEE for choosing papers at last year’s Summer Study for Buildings and this recently published research report, Energy Codes for Ultra-Low-Energy Buildings: A Critical Pathway to Zero Net Energy Buildings. I discussed the Summer Study papers in a post back in August.  There were seven(!) papers presented on the subject of code compliance.  The lack of…
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Dec 15
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Wind Energy – Finally Going Somewhere

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
This week’s post features a strong shot of irony.  South Dakota ranks 49th of 51 jurisdictions (50 states plus the District of Columbia) in ACEEE’s 2014 Energy Efficiency Scorecard report, yet its citizens overwhelmingly support wind power.  And when I say they support wind power, they act on it – not “yes, I love it ”.  This isn’t a “do you support renewable energy” question – which, as discussed in last week’s post about freeridership, is a question loaded with social pressure.  No.  South Dakotan’s aren’t slaves to political correctness; nor are they complainers.  I know because I went to…
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Aug 25
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Energy Code (non) Compliance; Could it be… SATAN?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
I spent last week at ACEEE’s Summer Study for Buildings, and one topic area I maximumly followed was energy codes and code compliance.  In past years, I would rank codes and standards second to the bottom, just above lighting for my priorities.  The reason for my sudden interest is the vaporizing gravy train of widgets, especially lighting and the need for other savings mechanisms.  Why not code compliance?States are updating energy codes willy nilly to the next rounds of ASHRAE 90.1 / International Energy Conservation Code.  As the Church Lady used to say, “Isn’t that special?”  The problem is the…
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Apr 07
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Attribution and Net to Gross – Pop Tarts or Oatmeal?

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments
Last week I attended the ACEEE National Symposium on Market Transformation in Baltimore.  Learning and information gathering from conference sessions are typically down the list of reasons I attend conferences.  This conference however turned out to be very beneficial on both of those counts.  In particular, the net-to-gross (NTG) football, as described in last August’s Energy Program Evaluation Asylum post, was uncased for another game.  This time I learned something. One session featured heavy doses of program attribution, and of course, the NTG football.  Speakers included Bob Wirtshafter from Wirtshafter Associates and Mike Messenger from Itron.  Both gentlemen demonstrated the…
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Jul 22
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Energy Efficiency in the USA

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
Over the weekend I was reading this white paper by ACEEE, and as almost always, a number of responses came to mind.With the passing of years I observe that as people age, they fall into perhaps three categories: (1) the curmudgeons  - the glass is ¾ empty and don’t tell me it isn’t (2) cynical cranks with ideas and (3) Chrissy Snows.  Engineers, for example, fall into the first two groups – or they go to law school, get into politics, and turn into a Chrissy Snow.  Chrissy Snows, as with everyone, are mostly good people, but they live in…
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Jun 17
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Alternative Fuels – ET Says, “What’s the Matter with You?”

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
I was reading this opinion piece by the Rolling Stones keyboardist and forestry nut, and it didn’t take long for an age-old rant topic to emerge.  This one is about misguided allocation of resources, particularly for alternative fuels, to achieve desired ends.  If an alien (say, ET, although I’ve never watched the movie) landed in the US and evaluated our alternative fuel feed stocks and end use fuels (e.g. ethanol), it would say, “What are you doing man?  This is insane!”But first, let me begin with how the pursuit of wealth, which happens to be the force behind a growing economy…
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Apr 29
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Cost Recovery for Energy Efficiency Programs – An Ignorant Idea

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
If you haven’t seen Michaels’ recent self-indulgent video, you might want to do that now.  It is many hours of video shooting reduced to a fine sauce, just under four minutes.  My interview, for example, lasted maybe 45 minutes and maybe 30 seconds of it are included in the video.  One line I’m pleased to have been captured and included was the statement that there is a limitless supply (and immense variety) of learning available in our industry.  One thing I know little about is the guts of the utility business and cost recovery for energy efficiency programs.  So why…
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Aug 20
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Tea Party On, Dudes

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff No Comments
Jeff Erickson of Navigant Consulting presented an interesting paper at last week’s American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Summer Study for Buildings.  The title was, “Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Battle over Energy Efficiency.”  I thought it was just clever (aka bait and switch) advertising, but the presentation featured, almost exclusively, how the free market, small government tea party and the profit-bad, regulation-good occupiers might view energy efficiency. The tea party would favor consumer choice for incandescent light bulbs and gas guzzlers over government regulation of these common, and other uncommon for that matter, consumer goods. …
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May 07
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Widgetman

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government 4 Comments
Widgetitis: Obsessive compulsion to build canals with teaspoons – or meet program goals with showerheads. A short story about economist Milton Friedman from The Wall Street Journal sort of sets the stage for effectively meeting program/portfolio goals in big chunks: “Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which…
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We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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