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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The widget world of energy efficiency is governed by the Technical Resource Manual, or TRM. A technical resource manual includes energy calculations requiring baselines and efficient equipment specifications, hours of use, and duty cycles. It also includes cost differences for baseline and efficient equipment. Costs and savings from TRMs are used across the board for mass market, and even in some cases large, far too large in my opinion, equipment. Technical resource manuals may be held at the state level, which may apply to all programs/utilities in the state, or at the utility level. Some in our industry are advocating…
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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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It has been a while since I’ve written anything about programs, so here it goes. Program evaluation provides about half our business, and much of that is verifying gross savings estimates, which are simply the original program-claimed savings. Verifying custom projects, those that don’t fall into mass categories like light bulbs and air conditioners, are generally more interesting, at least from an energy analysis perspective. Findings from the field can be follical (new word derived from folly) for any type of measure. Implementers of custom efficiency programs, especially implementers not accustomed to the evaluation process, can be especially entertaining. In…
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Warning: Reader shall defend and hold harmless the author, company, shareholders, allies, certain family members and relatives, pets, social, medical, behavioral counselors, and anyone else the author chooses against any and all losses including, but not limited to, attorney fees, fame, surname, lock changing, key making, therapy, alternate travel and lodging costs, doghouse rental, and any costs or damages of any and every natural, supernatural, paranormal nature and kind whatsoever, which may result due to poor judgment, dumb luck, brilliance, negligence, ignorance, knowledge, visions, memories, premonitions, and dreams by reader and retaliation by spouse, partner, significant other, family (up, down…
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As blasted in this blog many times, most recently in Widgetman, humans almost always have their priorities far out of whack. With EE for example, facility owners should probably establish marshal law to ensure lights are shut off overnight in their office buildings before they start adding photovoltaic panels. But then, I guess, to the casual observer (schlep) one can see how green the building is during the day, but at night when the building is lit like the headlamp of an oncoming train when no one is there, the wonderful PV panels cannot be seen and nobody pays attention…
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Last week ACEEE produced a webinar, “Intelligent Efficiency”. I was late to the party but as I came online, an ACEEE guy, Neal Elliott was talking and the topic was intriguing – system-wide, holistic, intelligent efficiency. I thought, hmm, maybe somebody read this entire series of rants and was possibly preaching from the gospels of the obvious. Next up was a guy from Schneider Electric and he gave a boring advertisement of – Schneider Electric. Next was a guy from Johnson Controls to talk about what else – the Empire State building. The Empire State Building EE overhaul has been…
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This week’s feature presentation is one of my favorites for saving energy: automobiles. Let’s take this recent post from Fuel Fix and dive right in. The first one I read is “make sure your gas cap is broken or missing.” That’s right. You can save 3 cents per gallon if it is broken or missing. I think they need some proofreading. I suggest using a well-oiled and fully functional gas cap. Where they get the 3 cents per gallon savings, I have no idea. That’s like saying a 20 minute power walk will reduce the energy content of a milkshake…
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Unfortunately, some products and services in life still require cash – coins or paper. Some of the last places I use these anachronisms include taxis, and… and tips, or an occasional soda machine. Oh and the beloved antique parking meters and toll roads in some places. Here is something to consider: if the meter only takes coins, skip it. You’ll spend $50 of your time finding a few bucks of quarters somewhere and running to the meter every hour or two – all to save a $10 parking ticket. A few times a year when traveling with others, we need…
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As I created Widget Man last week I couldn’t get Elton John’s Rocket Man out of my head, so naturally I started to think parody. A warm up may be good to get your rhythm. Willie Widget Man goes sumpin ike iss: They set my goals so high, I cried Two percent, holy crap! Why they gotta be high as a kite like that? I miss the fruit so low, I miss old code It’s not easy for me now It’s such a mindless rite And I think it’s gonna be a damn hard time No light bulbs anywhere for…
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