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Oct 29
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Saving Energy – Lessons in Self Improvement

By Energy Rant One Comment
Last week in Behavior Freak, we explored the ratio of energy savings to beer consumption at the Delta house (answer = χ/∞ = 0 ). Specifically, that post explained why college students’ only motivation to save energy is currency, and absent currency, the needle does not move. This week we explore more interesting behavioral success with commercial building actors, also operating under no specific personal monetary drivers. The secret ingredient: timely, useful information, and maybe a little human nature – energy management success or failure for large office building facility operators. This post is based on a paper presented by Buildings…
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Oct 22
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Behavior by a Left Brain Efficiency Freak

By Energy Rant One Comment
E2e, and I have no idea what that stands for, is a joint initiative of University of California-Berkeley, The University of Chicago, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their charter is to assess and quantify the energy efficiency gap between estimated, or ex-ante savings, and observed or measured savings; kind of like the Energy Rant attempts to provide. In Kool-Aid and Happy Face Rugs, I first referenced one of their reports in which they critiqued WAP – the federal government’s weatherization assistance program. That paper indicated WAPs produce only 40% of claimed energy savings. The methodology caught a lot of flak…
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Oct 15
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ENERGY STAR Gets it Right – Owners Complain

By Energy Rant No Comments
Show me the money, Jerry! That is what I have to say about building energy performance. I don’t care for bling and doohickeys. What is the bottom line at the meter? I surmise that ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager was conceived and developed with the best of intentions to score and rank buildings, at the meter level, for energy performance considering vast factors including building type, hours of use, climate zone and so on. However, as noted in the Lake Wobegon post a few years ago, not all, but most buildings are above average . In that case, the average building…
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Oct 01
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Slick Willy Sutton is Paid for Performance

By Energy Rant No Comments
In the past couple of months, Energy Rant introduced pay-for-performance (P4P)trends in our industry. See Tectonic Power and Pace, and Tooling Pay for Performance. It reminds me of the overused engineering adage: we provide services that are fast, cheap, and good. Pick two. In the case of P4P, “performance” may include goal achievement, cost-effectiveness, fairness, equity, or a host of other criteria. Pick two. I think most people in our industry would consider P4P to include meeting program goals and cost-effectiveness targets. In other words, we, as the buyer, will pay you, as provider, a bonus for exceeding savings goals…
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Aug 27
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Efficiency – With Tectonic Power and Pace

By Energy Rant One Comment
I am no mountaineer, but without looking, I know the Himalayan range is growing taller. How do I remember this? Because the earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates that are always moving. The edge of tectonic plates forms fault lines for earthquakes. Did you know, that at some point, coastal California will be neighbors with Alaska? It’s true. A hell of a lot of earthquakes will happen in between, giving “bumpy ride” new meaning. In Southern Asia, the plate that India sits on is slamming into Asian landmass, thrusting Everest higher, adding roughly 2.4 inches per year to…
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Aug 13
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Modern Efficiency and the Disappearing Clapping Seals

By Energy Rant One Comment
A couple of weeks ago I was directed to an article in AESP’s magazine discussing ways to improve efficiency program cost-effectiveness.  Although it wasn’t about avoided-cost and benefit-cost tests, it provides good stuff for elaborating in this blog. “Cost effective” in the context of the article means lowering the cost per unit of energy or demand saved.  Certainly, this helps to improve benefit-cost ratios, for most of the convoluted tests, that must have been concocted by graduate students under the influence of mind-altering chemicals.  Boy, do I wish we could dial back forty years so we could simply compare the…
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Feb 19
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Efficiency – Balancing Customer and Shareholder Interests

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
As the name would imply, the Energy Rant bypasses the pompom lines of energy efficiency spirit squads. This week I feel a sudden, robust, burning urge to sway images of efficiency. When I think of the role and reason for efficiency programs, the phrase “obligation to serve” comes to mind. From where did that come? Is it folklore, a slogan as with marketing, or is it rooted in something official or even legal? I investigated and found the roots to be interesting. The End Results Doctrine If I were a betting person, I’d put all chips on a bet that…
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Jan 22
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Untold Story of Disappearing Energy Jobs

By Energy Rant No Comments
On the subject of electricity generation sources and price, I’ve been reading numerous articles from various bona fide sources and started connecting dots. Public Utilities Fortnightly (PUF) has written about historically low electricity prices, as a percent of GDP or household spending, numerous times in the past year. Electricity price escalation has not kept pace with the consumer price index. As of last August, Steve Mitnick, of PUF shared data, which I plotted on the chart below.A year ago, I wrote about this topic as well in Low Electricity Prices - For How Long?. In that post, I explained how…
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Dec 18
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High Crimes in Custom Efficiency?

By Energy Rant One Comment
Custom efficiency programs are held to a higher standard than others (prescriptive). The customer pursuing custom incentives must wait to see what the incentive amount will be before they purchase anything. If they buy first and ask second, no rebate for you. This is not the case for prescriptive programs, where customers know they will get $75 for the purchase of a smart thermostat, or $100 for the replacement of an evaporator fan motor with an electronically commutated motor. Prescriptive participants can make their purchases and claim their rebate any time, usually before the end of the calendar year. Custom…
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Oct 30
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Electric Vehicle Charging – Deep Thoughts from an Abnormal Mind

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I attended a workshop, “Powering A More Electric Economy”, sponsored by the Wisconsin Public Utility Institute (WPUI). They provide great content, and this workshop was no exception. It got me thinking, which can be dangerous for our staff and Rant readers, but that’s the price you pay to be a daredevil. The primary technologies discussed included electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps. In this post, I write about the “what ifs” of potential widespread EV adoption. The Wheel, Reinvented Here is something to dazzle your friends, family, and pets with: EVs were popular 100 years ago. I love…
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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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