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public utilities fortnightly

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 23
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Low Electricity Prices – Impacts and Longevity

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
As I’m sitting here reading about topics including electricity prices, electric cars, and utility innovation in Public Utilities Fortnightly, it occurs to me: why are so many organizations and companies in the utility industry named after Edison when the electric car company is named after Tesla? This makes no sense, whatsoever. Edison was the vehement direct current advocate, and Tesla was the alternating current advocate. They were fierce rivals. But the car uses Edison’s direct current, while the utilities, of course, produce and deliver Tesla’s alternating current. I can only conclude that Edison was a better marketer, but I’ll bet…
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Oct 03
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Evaluation, Measurement and Verification 2.0; A Whale Bus or an Airbus?

By Energy Rant 2 Comments
Evaluation, Measurement and Verification 2.0, or EM&V 2.0, is a nerdy term coined in 2014, according to this blog by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP). The hype of EM&V 2.0, which I will explain later, is that it will automate measurement and verification, putting us engineers out of business. This is not going to happen anytime soon. Definition 2.0 The definition of EM&V 2.0 boils down to using utility meter interval data, typically hourly or sometimes every 15 minutes, or maybe even 5 minutes, to disaggregate and measure impacts from energy efficiency measures. One could consider that EM&V 2.0 is…
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Aug 22
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Suffolk Sheep

Utility Scale vs Small Distributed Generation – Protection by Savage Suffolks

By Energy Rant No Comments
The June issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly (PUF) featured a supplemental, special report in collaboration with Navigant Research. One of the interesting articles in that publication is Impacts, Threats, Opportunities of renewable energy production. It compares utility scale to distributed renewable power generation. To refresh your memory, or perhaps for new subscribers, see my post on the Bogus Energy Internet of Things where I describe, in relatable terms, that distributed dinky power supply compared to the grid makes very little to no sense. The PUF/Navigant article backs this with the prices of wind and solar renewable energy generation for distributed…
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Jul 11
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FERC 745 – The Worst Order Ever Produced?

By Energy Rant One Comment
Robert Borlick writes in Public Utilities Fortnightly that FERC Order 745 is “one of the worst orders FERC has ever produced” – “a time bomb for electricity consumers”. Whoa! I better sharpen my axes. That is a more lethal statement than I would even write, and it isn’t even in the opinion section. It’s a featured article. Let’s take this a step at a time. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is adorned with the authority to regulate “the sale of electric energy at wholesale in interstate commerce”. As noted in DC Smackdown of FERC, regulation of interstate commerce is…
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May 23
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dna

Thinking Required; Uh Oh – Effective v Triggering DNA

By Energy Rant No Comments
A year ago, I ranted about the Powerwall, part of Elon Musk’s grand vision of flashy widgets. From that post, I will modify a portion to fit this post: Uber is disruptive. Powerwall isn’t. Powerwall is mostly disruptive to the owner’s bank account. It solves no problem, but it does create new ones. In last year’s post, I assessed the cost of electricity storage via the 7 kWh Powerwall. Over the lifetime of the unit, the cost per kWh would be 11.7¢ per kWh, kWh and installation not included. In other words, the storage alone costs 11.7¢. Imagine if your…
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Nov 30
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Smart Grid Segmentation – Taking on the Dumb Meter Activists

By Energy Rant No Comments
I have written several times about smart grid hype; in particular about a year ago in Deaf and Mute Smart Meter. In that post, I described how utilities could truly treat demand response as a resource by using smart meter data, predictive consumption, and giving customers the power of their smart phone or tablet to participate in the infamous “utility of the future”. Customers want engagement, and they want control. Touché. A recent edition of Public Utilities Fortnightly (subscription) explained that indeed the smart grid is in a coma (my term). The title of the article is Smart Grid Isn’t Dead, but upon reading…
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Jul 21
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DC Circuit’s Smackdown of FERC re Demand Response

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
I’ve written dozens of proposals, and I’ve read dozens and dozens of requests for proposals from all sorts of entities including states, local governments, private corporations, and of course, utilities.  With this comes scope of work requested, required proposal content, rules, terms and conditions, and due dates.  I always consider content of the RFP to mean what it says, and if it isn’t clear what it means, either ask a question via the process detailed in the RFP, or ignore it and work it out later, or it is a minor thing – irrelevant in the big picture. Enter the…
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Apr 14
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Efficiency by Wi Fi – and Other Tricks

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
The old cliché, “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it”, may be coming to energy efficiency portfolios everywhere.  It may be an unstoppable juggernaut that our industry will have little control over (pun alert).  Instead, it will drive implementers into ambulance chasing and drive evaluators whacky.  What is it?  Controls, especially Wi-Fi consumer control systems. Millenials, bear with me as I write like an old man, but I will avoid discussions of snow, hills, and walking to school (if you’re over 40 and from the Midwest, you know what I mean). 1970s: AM radio, broadcast…
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We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

All things energy. That’s our jam.

We talk a lot about energy – from the serious to the satirical.

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