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IEPEC

What's in your name?

What’s in Your (Org’s) Name?

By Energy Rant No Comments
After several weeks of hardcore grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) discussion and brutal challenges, I’m giving your brains a break this week – kind of like a shot of whiskey after weeks of drinking green protein smoothies in preparation for that marathon you always wanted to do. Pronunciations Speaking of GEBs – how do you say GEBs? Gebs, right? What about SEM. No. SEM aficionados are a highfalutin crowd. It’s es ee em. So dudes, if you don’t like the way people pronounce your organization or activity, name it something simple or deal with the consequences of busy people. What about…
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energy

Soaked to Crisp Threats and 100% Renewable Energy

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I attended the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, IEPEC, which I had affectionately dubbed the Energy Program Evaluation Asylum, EPEA, six years ago. Back then, I called it the Asylum because it included annual scrums over subjects such as net-to-gross (NTG) studies, free ridership, and so on. The Family Feud is Dead You’ll never believe this, but the industry seems to have moved on. The only time I heard “NTG” was during the opening-night entertainment exercise – a gameshow wannabee modeled after the Family Feud. “One hundred evaluators were surveyed. The top six answers are on the board.…
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Energy Program Evaluation Tales from the Dark Side

By Energy Rant No Comments
The Energy Rant is not for the weak-kneed who prefer to live in the land of unicorns, fairy dust, and lollipops. This week is no exception.This Rant is brought to you by the recent ACEEE paper, Recent Developments in Energy Efficiency Evaluation, Measurement and Verification. Burned on the Alter of 90/10 A major objective of most evaluation contracts is to punch the 90/10 ticket. To recap, 90/10 simply means there is a 90% chance that the results of the population, if evaluated in full, will be within plus or minus 10% of the results for the sampled, studied projects. As…
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Climate Change IV – Diverse Thought, Anyone?

By Energy Rant One Comment
Last week, we discussed themes of the 2017 International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, known as IEPEC for short. One of the positive themes included how the industry is beginning to have a constructive approach to fixing climate change, the subject of this post. Liberals have softened their rhetoric on climate change and are moving toward a truce with conservatives, with figurehead Bob Inglis and his founded organization, RepublicEn, making the first move. Free Expression of Thought? Dr. David Barker with American University, stated in the closing plenary that liberals are less tolerant and more hostile toward views of the other…
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Tales from the Energy Program Evaluation Asylum

By Energy Rant No Comments
I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing papers written for the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, or IEPEC, over the years. I dig the conference, which I like to call the asylum, as I did four years ago. People in the evaluation business can get pretty fired up. While I witnessed no verbal punches at this conference, one guy was practically shouting his comment and quaking during his peanut gallery monologue. Is there a question here, somewhere? Here’s the thing: lighten up, y’all. Don’t take things so damn seriously. On that note, there were very constructive conversations around climate change.…
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Supercharging Behavior and the Four Dollar KiloWatt Hour

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
Google search tells me that I have never used the word “hoopla” in an Energy Rant.  Here goes.  There is a great deal of hoopla in the industry for behavior programs.  Last week, AESP featured a brown bag webinar – Current and Future Trends for Behavior Change Energy Efficiency Programs.  It is so new, it isn’t yet available in the AESP library, at least as I write this.  Now that I mention it, the other half of our subcommittee produced a Strategies newsletter article for commercial and industrial behavior programs, coming next month.  Don’t take your eye off the inbox.…
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The State of Program Evaluation and Tips for Picking Good Evaluation Practitioners

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
This post is brought to you by the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC), circa 19, er 2015.  I moderated one session featuring four great papers and presentations concerning residential space heating and cooling.  I also observed one concurrent session for nearly all the timeslots in the conference.  The theme I found, which was very pleasing to me, is that doing useful research and evaluation is challenging and expensive. The reason it pleases me is that, well, getting things right is everything, but it also levels the playing field.  I hate losing bids, but it is less painful to lose…
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1984 Was Not Like 1984

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff One Comment
Interestingly, several things collided last week resulting in a loud voice saying, “talk about the fuuuuture”, Yoda style.  First we began by discussing our marketing theme for this fall’s AESP conference in Dallas.  If you don’t have your tickets yet, get with the program!  Next, came the stepping down of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.  Finally, it was a follow up email from the IEPEC conference (see last week’s rant for details).   What do these have in common?  Read on. The first topic and actually the theme of this post is change.  Like it or not, we live in globally…
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The Rogue Choir Boy

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff One Comment
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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Prudes Trafficking Cud

By Energy Efficiency No Comments
Having been in the EE industry for 15+ years and regularly attending conferences around the country (for just a few years), I find myself being volunteered to contribute to these conferences with planning, presenting papers, and “peer” reviewing others’ papers.  The planning, peer reviewing, and being peer reviewed are learning experiences as I gain awareness of how others think and what they find interesting and important.  I say “awareness” and not necessarily “understanding” because quite frankly, the way some people think, baffles me. For example, I was talking with a gun collector the other day and prior to this I…
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