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Energy Star

Mar 25
Love127

Windows Worth a View

By Energy Rant No Comments
When I read a headline such as A Piece of Glass Thinner Than a Credit Card Could Solve America’s $25 Billion Energy Problem, there is a pretty good chance I’m going to investigate and a lesser chance that I will write about it – but here, we go. The Wall Street Journal article states that double-pane windows have hardly changed in their 100-year history, although I find it hard to believe they existed a hundred years ago. More likely, they are speaking of the old double-hung, rattling windows with counterweights with crappy storms on the outside. Want to see what…
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Aug 02
Love2

Better than Best Program Practices

By Energy Rant No Comments
When Val Jenson talks, I listen. When he writes, I read. His recent article in Energy Central triggered an avalanche of ideas for a program, portfolio, and industry overhaul needed to get us there, which is the next level of savings equal to the last 25 years of lighting replacements and retrofits. Those days are gone, and unfortunately, the line of thinking that got us here (light bulbs) won’t get us there. Downstream Days are Numbered Let’s start with my favorite need for an overhaul, which is my greatest peeve – rebates and cash incentives to customers, known as a…
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Feb 08
Love0

Indestructible Code Compliance Villains

By Energy Rant No Comments
In case you missed last week’s post, you’ll need to go back and review the setup for this week’s demonstration of code challenges and mistakes. To summarize, I have an installed ENERGY STAR-qualifying 95% AFUE (efficient) boiler with a brazed plate heat exchanger, hot water reset control, and a variable firing rate that ranges from 20% to 100%. That firing range is even better than code requirements. The system is a duded-out energy code breaker in theory. Let’s look at what went wrong in order. I have a Nest cam in the backyard and a Nest thermostat for the boiler.…
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Feb 01
Love0

Code Compliance Setup – A Boiler Project

By Energy Rant No Comments
Over the last forty years, computers have become orders of magnitude more powerful while they have become much easier to use. When I was in college, mainframe IBM computers owned all the muscle of computations. I was terrified of coding and wanted nothing to do with that. Thankfully, graphical interfaces emerged to make it easy. I even conquered graduate school with Engineering Equation Solver (“do it with EES” as its creator, Professor Sandy Klein, used to say). Energy codes went completely the opposite direction, from a simple document from the IBM mainframe era (1989) to a behemoth that would break…
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Oct 15
Love0

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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Feb 09
Love0

ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Benchmarks Lake Wobegon

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
Not that my opinion is worth anything, but the results of Chicago’s 2014 commercial building benchmarking report are excellent.  The report indicates that most of the 348 buildings that were benchmarked for the study were benchmarked using ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager.  The cross-cutting data provided reveals interesting facts that are not expounded upon – but I will. The first thing is rather stunning.  The median ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager score for 348 buildings, accounting for 260 million square feet of building space, was/is 76.  By definition, the median score of all buildings in the Portfolio Manager database is 50.  The…
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Jul 30
Love0

Bling not Required

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Rant fans are getting a break this week.  This post exemplifies a smashing success in energy efficiency and is a bit of a spinoff on capitalizing energy efficiency as I discussed in Facility Management, Taliban Style and Better than Doritos. The story begins with a board meeting for the Iowa Association for Energy Efficiency.  BTW, this is the least expensive, far and away, greatest-benefit-per-dollar-invested energy efficiency organization in the country. The board meeting was at an apartment complex, Sun Prairie, in West Des Moines or thereabouts.  As I pulled in with 134F heat at 9:30 AM, I was thinking, “Is…
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