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incentives

Why Customers Don’t Trust Energy Efficiency – Versus Stupid Pet Tricks

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 3 Comments
As I mentioned in a LinkedIn post last week, this week’s Energy Rant involves an interesting article Why Homeowners Don’t Trust Energy Efficiency.  The paper could also be tweaked a little and re-entitled, Why Customers Don’t Trust Energy Efficiency.  Period.  As usual, this brings to mind a cornucopia of spinoffs. Let’s first begin with a core theme of a rant from about a month ago.  In that, I said savings from current portfolios across the country are dominated by: Incentives for trinkets like CFLs and ENERGY STAR this, that, and the other (consumer goods) and Incentives for contractors to upsell efficient…
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The More You Spend, The More You Save

By Energy Rant, LEED, Retrocommissioning (RCx) 2 Comments
Talk about an oxymoron.  Years ago this was a favorite saying of my roommate and I as we lambasted dopey ads on TV, on paper, or over the airwaves. Fewer years ago, once I got into this energy efficiency profession, I was speaking with a utility energy-efficiency program guy who frequently interacts with regulators.  This was during a stakeholder meeting for quantifying energy saving potential by sector and by technology.  (technology = lighting, furnaces, chillers, etc.)  Knowing buildings systems rarely work as they are supposed to, I asked, “Have you considered retrocommissioning (RCx) as an energy efficiency program?”  His answer…
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Tax Deduction Pennies

By Energy Rant, Tax Stuff No Comments
Recently, we received our umpteenth “request for proposal” (RFP) to provide the engineering required to capture the elusive $1.80 tax deduction on new or remodeled buildings.  We spend a lot of time, money and effort to drive business through our doors but I’m not sure I want to see another one of these. Like the rest of the universally incomprehensible tax code, the engineering piece of this is relatively complex.  If we did this all the time, it wouldn’t be a problem.  But it seems we get the next RFP just as the rules are overwritten in my long-term memory…
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