I spent last week at the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, IEPEC, as in, I-E-P-E-C to hard core evaluators or I-Peck for the rest of us. Ninety-five percent of the conference including content and networking was great. Of course with this being the Energy Rant, I will beat on the remaining 5%. Recapping, there are generally two portions of program evaluation: impact and process. Impact evaluation, which is what we at Michaels do, involves the assessment of savings (impacts) programs achieve, including what the measure actually saves (gross savings) and what impact the program had on the savings (net savings). …
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A senior sales director for MXEnergy, “the fastest growing natural gas and electricity retail provider” states, “As we observe the unrest in Egypt and other parts of the world, we recognize the volatility of the natural gas market.” What? He like many others “on both sides of the aisle” use the Middle East and our real dependence on foreign to twang the audience’s emotional strings. The goings on in Egypt will have nearly zero affect on natural gas prices here in the mainland, U.S. Why? Because nearly all of our natural gas is produced here and we import from hostile…
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Carbon taxes or cap and trade seem to have been a foregone conclusion in our industry of energy efficiency. I’m not so sure. I, like many other engineers in the energy efficiency business have always been cynical about global warming, which for some reason is now known as climate change. I would argue that a relatively small portion of anti-carbon people are true believers, that carbon is having or will have a significant effect on the climate and I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the vast majority of people and organizations who…
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