An overarching theme of the Energy Rant is that much energy policy has a feel-good foundation of fluff. Last week I ranted about the feel-good dream of having plentiful, inexpensive renewable energy. This will take a miracle because conventional sources are still huge and growing. We have enough coal, natural gas, tar sands, oil shale, and offshore energy to last beyond our kids’ great grandchildren. Of course most readers of this are champions of energy efficiency, but energy efficiency also has too much feel-good fluff. Consider compact fluorescent lights, which despite my rant about it’s mandate a few weeks ago…
Read More
We do a LOT of energy efficiency program evaluation and measurement and verification work all over the country; make that North America. Program evaluation consists primarily of process evaluation (process) and impact evaluation (impact). Our work is almost entirely in the impact side and I know just enough to talk dangerously about process. Impact is the analysis of what energy savings are really attributable to the program. This includes verifying the physical installation and determining the actual savings using some sort of engineering analysis. This actual savings is known as gross savings in the business. It also includes determining whether…
Read More
