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Apr 09
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CAFE Standards, Chicken Taxes, and Tin Can Coopers

By Energy Rant One Comment
We’re headed off-road in this edition of the Rant to discuss fuel mileage standards. Last Monday, April 2, the EPA rolled back Obama era EPA fuel mileage standards, also known as corporate average fuel economy standards, or CAFE standards. There are many opinions on this, from ACEEE to The Wall Street Journal and thousands of others. I will stick with facts and reality and stay out of that muck.It would be great if the efficiency in buildings and cost of energy were as transparent as they are for vehicles. I think everyone knows how many gallons of gasoline or diesel…
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Feb 26
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Powering Lives at Lowest, Convenient Cost

By Energy Rant No Comments
I spent last week at the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) National Conference in New Orleans. Our industry is in transition once again. Substantial changes are on the horizon. Let’s recap some highlights and lowlights in the utility and demand side management industries the past few decades. As nuclear power was going to be too cheap to meter in the 1970s, the oil embargo, Jimmy Carter sweater speech, and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident resulted in a radically different direction for our energy future. On the heels of the above, and the global cooling threat (check out the…
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Jan 29
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Guest Post: The Big WHY

By Energy Rant No Comments
Today’s Rant gives you a sneak peek into the beautiful mind of one of our evaluators, Teri Lutz. Teri is launching a blog on what’s new and what’s necessary in the world of research and evaluation, and we can’t wait for you to tune in. Official blog coming soon!Hello! I’m excited to share with you some thoughts on advancing our evaluation and research practice to better understand how we might change the way we deliver and use energy. We are on the brink of an evaluation renaissance. Smart grids, smart meters, smart buildings, and smart data are prominent themes in…
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Sep 25
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Reverse Diversification Coming to a Utility Near You

By Energy Rant One Comment
In my Personal Finance class as an undergraduate, our instructor used the term diworsification for large stalwart companies. Diworsification occurs when a company buys another company it knows nothing about and isn’t complimentary to the core business. Utilities got into this in the wild west days of 1990s deregulation, buying telecommunication and even real estate companies. That didn’t end well, and they went back to their core business of the regulated monopoly.In recent years we have experienced a reverse diversification of our power supply – namely in the reliable, conventional, thermal power plant sector. We still get almost half our…
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Sep 18
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I’ll Take Smart Grid for $200, Alex – What is AMI?

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
Last week, in a moment of weakness, I was on my Pinterest board (is that what it’s called?), when I came upon this excellent tip sheet from a marketing blog. I noted that the “emotional” alternatives to the “intellectual,” bloated phrases were simpler with fewer syllables and easier to read. On the same day, I was studying the benefits and costs of “advanced metering infrastructure,” aka, “smart grid.” Do you see a problem with our industry here? Name something with grotesquely puffy language, and then tag it with an incomprehensible acronym, rather than using a simpler term like, oh, smart…
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Jul 17
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Commercial HVAC – Retrofit v New Construction: Apples v Poutine

By Energy Rant No Comments
This post is the main course following last week’s appetizer that covered some complexities of deep energy retrofits for homes. The thrust of that post was that even retrofitting homes requires considerations of many things that have nothing to do with energy – just to achieve desired energy results. This week, we are advancing the subject to commercial buildings. Case Study: 100 Year Old School Let’s start again with a 100-year-old middle school shown nearby. This building has already had a deep energy retrofit, and I’ll explain how to tell later (below). I pulled this building out of my memory…
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Jul 10
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Complexities of Home Energy Retrofits

By Energy Rant 6 Comments
As luck would have it, in recent memory, I’ve been to a couple t-shirt nights at MLB games. Yippy. This isn’t like the free shirts they give out at marathons, where you can take whatever size you need – you know, something that fits. No. Baseball franchises provide one crappy size, extra-large. It fits some of us, but the rest of us have a shirt that might as well go directly to the local Goodwill store. Some deep energy retrofit programs are like the crappy extra-large t-shirt. Let us get started with homes, to which everyone can relate and understand.…
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May 22
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Design in Series; Operate in Parallel

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week we revealed the five priorities of saving energy: Shut it off Slow it down, set it back (temperature, etc.) Reduce waste Retrofit or replace with efficient equipment Don’t be stupid Speaking of don’t be stupid, if you didn’t read last week’s post… In this case, “don’t be stupid”, is not easy – like telling a fighter pilot or neurosurgeon not to be stupid. But this is why I write. If it were easy, everyone would do it, and I wouldn’t have a job. Baby Steps To recap last week’s post, energy used for processes including refrigeration, air conditioning,…
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Feb 06
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Business Triangles

Investing in Utilities

By Energy Rant No Comments
Most readers have likely seen the business triangle: cheap, fast, good ; pick two. My first emotional reaction to the triangle was that it was something a lazy bum would say. However, as a geezer, I think the law is valid for consulting. I will explain this in a future post. For utilities, it would be something else; maybe cheap, constant, yes. Those are the price, time, and quality attributes of utility delivery. For utilities, the term “constant” represents reliability. The term “yes” represents quality or accuracy. In this case, 60 Hertz and the applicable constant voltage. I explained how…
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Jan 09
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Things You Need to Know Re Electric Vehicles

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
Last week I wrote about understanding the customer and knowing what they want, whether the customer is the utility, regulator, or the end user of energy. Taking this a step beyond, the customer/client may not know what they want. For example, a hypothetical customer may want to control all energy use in their house from a smartphone, 100% renewable energy, and a smart-grid connected electric car. I am convinced once the hoopla settles, customers will want (1) cheap, reliable energy, and (2) any help to be more successful. Three weeks ago, I wrote about Messing with Near Perfection. That post…
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