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Apr 14
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US Energy Consumption

Combined Heat and Power – a Serious Decarb Weapon

By Energy Rant No Comments
A few weeks ago, we reviewed electricity storage technologies, barriers, and issues. One storage technology is the lowly lead-acid battery, which forms the backbone of uninterruptible power supplies for data centers. They are inexpensive with readily available materials, are 100% recyclable, and therefore, they get no attention. Why? Elon Musk, the ultimate hype provocateur. What happened to the PowerWall, by the way? Disruption of rational thought? A web search of “annual Powerwall sales” results in nothing but distantly tangential content. Similarly, the utility industry, our industry, other companies, and people chase the flashy objects (squirrel!) to obtain decarbonization targets. Flash…
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May 14
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Utilities – We all Un-Bundle

By Energy Rant One Comment
Our theme the last few weeks has covered technological change, consumer emotions, and irrational ways of thinking. The regulated monopoly and its cost-of-service model will not last forever. Someday it will be replaced. What might that look like? Right after last week’s post, From Crazy to Rational went up, I read Why Electric Utilities Should Replace Electric Rate Base in Fortnightly. Wow. How fortuitous! Cost-of-Service The cost-of-service model (COS) described in last week’s post, and verified by the Fortnightly article, motivates utilities to provide slightly more business efficiency than government. The COS model sets revenue requirements for utilities by capitalizing…
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Dec 22
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Combined Heat and Power Ins and Outs

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
Combined heat and power (CHP) is quite easy to understand from an energy efficiency perspective.  Deploying policies to encourage it is very complex due to a number of things: What fuel type are we saving? What is fair for the utility? What are the public benefits? How should any incentives be derived? CHP Overview In a conventional thermal power plant fired by coal, roughly 20% of the energy is lost to the exhaust in the form of waste heat.  Roughly 45% of the thermal energy is rejected to the atmosphere or body of water – river, lake, or ocean.  This…
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Jan 14
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One of these Days

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Our friends at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) have published another source report worthy of a post on this blog.  The title of this report is Frontiers of Energy Efficiency: Next Generation Programs Reach for High Energy Savings, which can be found here. The report is quite a detailed whomper, but I gravitated to the commercial and industrial sections of the Executive Summary to see what they have to say.  They are singing our (Michaels) song all the way baby, and we can hum to that tune.  Only my dogs will listen to my lyrics in…
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All things energy. That’s our jam.

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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