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request for proposals

RFPs, Wind & Participants from Hell; Tales from AESP Spring 2015

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
Last week’s AESP Spring Conference was the best that I can recall, in terms of the content delivered, in my opinion.  Perhaps I got lucky and went to the right presentations.  Perhaps it’s because I went to more presentations than usual.  Most likely it is for another reason, and readers will have to call me for that because it’s an advantage I want to hold among die-hard rant fans. I attended an Espresso Learning Shots discussion led by Laura Orfanedes from Fiveworx.  The topic was requests for proposals (RFPs) from both sides of the fence – from the buyer (utility)…
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Pregnant Snake Armpits

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Stimulus No Comments
Although I don’t appreciate talking about it, we have a black list of companies and organizations for which we will not again partner with, work with, or bid their request for proposals.  What type of activities land somebody on this list? Companies or organizations that take our business development efforts and give it to someone else. We are working on retro-commissioning for a major player in the Midwest grocery market.  As with most of our investment-grade studies for energy retrofit or retro-commissioning, we like to use contractors to provide us with pricing because we expect they will get the work…
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Of Car Dealers and Bathroom Tissue

By Energy Rant No Comments
Is there anything as mysterious as the price of a car, especially a new one?  I’ve heard the various prices so much, long ago, that I’ve pretty much blocked them out of my mind.  There is the sticker price, dealer cost, factory invoice cost, blah, blah…blah, blah, blah. Sooner or later the dreaded haggling begins.  I’ve heard that the buyer should always have the seller make the first offer.  I don’t think it matters.  I think the last time I bought a car I scrounged about on Kelly Blue Book’s web site, which has dealer suggested retail, private party (for…
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