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April 2013

Cost Recovery for Energy Efficiency Programs – An Ignorant Idea

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant One Comment
If you haven’t seen Michaels’ recent self-indulgent video, you might want to do that now.  It is many hours of video shooting reduced to a fine sauce, just under four minutes.  My interview, for example, lasted maybe 45 minutes and maybe 30 seconds of it are included in the video.  One line I’m pleased to have been captured and included was the statement that there is a limitless supply (and immense variety) of learning available in our industry.  One thing I know little about is the guts of the utility business and cost recovery for energy efficiency programs.  So why…
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Demand Side Market Transformation

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I was reading a couple regulatory dockets; one by a citizen and another by an intervener.  They made some good points, including a situation of being locked out of the market in one’s own state, to which I replied, “Welcome to the party.”  Both dockets had a ring of “market transformation”. Our friends at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) define market transformation as, “The strategic process of intervening in a market to create lasting change in market behavior by removing identified barriers or exploiting opportunities to accelerate the adoption of all cost-effective energy efficiency…
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Business Ethics – Me First

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
This week, while reviewing my long list of potential topics, I came across this year-old blog post regarding the “ethical grid” and business ethics in general.  The author talks about three ways of doing business: immoral, amoral (insouciant), and moral.  He states that the immoral business operates under purely selfish reasons.  I disagree.  I argue that prosperity and moral business practice almost always involve selfishness, what’s best for me and the company. I will start with a simple example to pivot your brain.  Probably in just about any line of business, people deal with difficult customers and clients.  The inclination,…
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CAFE Standards and Auto Executive Dunces

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
Provide a chimpanzee with a computer loaded with MS Word and some sort of reward for pounding on the keyboard, and sooner or later it will produce a sentence, probably consisting of two words: subject, verb.  Provide a workbook with a one-trick-pony energy calculation to an unqualified user who applies it to a scenario it doesn’t represent whatsoever, and they may return the “right” answer, once in a while.  Allow 536 mostly clueless individuals to craft laws and policies, and sooner or later by unintended consequences, they may achieve an objective.  And so it goes with automobile fuel economy standards,…
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Connect with Michaels!

By News, Uncategorized No Comments
Connect with Michaels! Michaels Energy gave away three $100 Amazon gift cards as part of a social media contest!  Once we reached 200 followers on the respective social media site, we announced a winner:  Twitter follower (June 2013), LinkedIn follower (March 2014), and Facebook follower (June 2014).  All you had to do was like our page. It was that simple!  Connect with Michaels - and don't forget to tell your friends!  Stay tuned for more social media contests!
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Impact Evaluation – Catch Lucky

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
For many years of my adult life I thought, “courts and judges: who cares?”  I’ve learned that I do, big time.  Why?  Because courts can bend and twist laws and essentially rewrite them to the point that we might as well send legislators home, which in and of itself sounds like a good idea.  The danger is the courts are the backstop to protect us from unconstitutional law, and if they are creating law by fiat, there is no backstop.  There is no accountability.  They have the final say.  Energy efficiency impact evaluation is much the same, as evaluators declare…
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