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retrocommissioning

Dec 09
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Energy Efficiency Potential and the Low Hanging Disease

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 4 Comments
When I first started working at Michaels, still in my 20s, my workdays usually ended around 5:15, and since I was allergic to rolling out of bed before 6:00 AM, I would run after work in La Crosse.  I started running the trails of Hixon Forest, a very nice park on the edge of town with steep traverses and varying terrain that was sometimes easy on joints and in other places treacherous.  One night I tripped on a tree root that protruded from the surface of the trail.  I did a face plant and got something between a scratch and…
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Aug 26
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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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Jul 23
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Billy Bob, Evaluation Virgin

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Retrocommissioning (RCx), Utility Stuff No Comments
It has been a while since I’ve written anything about programs, so here it goes.  Program evaluation provides about half our business, and much of that is verifying gross savings estimates, which are simply the original program-claimed savings.  Verifying custom projects, those that don’t fall into mass categories like light bulbs and air conditioners, are generally more interesting, at least from an energy analysis perspective.  Findings from the field can be follical (new word derived from folly) for any type of measure. Implementers of custom efficiency programs, especially implementers not accustomed to the evaluation process, can be especially entertaining.  In…
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Feb 13
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Paint by Numbers EE

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
True or false: It’s easier to teach Pablo Picasso how to paint a house than it is to make a house painter into a Picasso-grade painter/artist.  For the answer, keep reading. I was sitting in a session at last week’s AESP conference sipping my weak overpriced Starbucks when I almost sprayed a mouthful on the bystanders sitting in front of me.  Not one, but two guys opined that it is easier to teach, for example, a refrigeration expert retrocommissioning than it is to teach a retrocommissioning/energy expert efficient refrigeration.  Allow me to demonstrate with an example, a true story. A…
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Nov 03
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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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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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