Phony Avoided Cost Models in a Free-Agent Market

Phony Avoided Cost Models in a Free-Agent Market

The last two posts, Nuclear Power over the White Rabbit and the Clean Power Plan Corpse, demonstrated the fruits of an undiversified baseload fleet of power generation. Electricity prices, which were so low during most of my career that few cared about them, are...
Hidden Barriers to Energy Efficiency

Hidden Barriers to Energy Efficiency

At their core, energy efficiency programs exist to help the market overcome barriers preventing the adoption of energy-efficient equipment or behaviors. Some barriers, like the high first cost of equipment, are obvious and often targeted, but they may mask other...
Blistering Wind and Solar Energy

Blistering Wind and Solar Energy

Grid reliability issues are upon us, and they will become more severe and disruptive in the next 10-20 years. But first, why is this happening? If governments mandated things in medicine[1] as they do with the grid, they would declare that chemotherapy will phase out...
Hidden Barriers to Energy Efficiency

The Case of the Wonky Solar Data

No matter the methodology, we calculate energy savings or production using data. Sometimes, however, the data is missing or appears to be an outlier due to a variety of reasons. When this occurs we need to figure out why and how to fix it. Let’s dig into a recent...