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August 2013

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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Energy Program Evaluation Asylum

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 8 Comments
Last week, some colleagues and I attended the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC) in Chicago.  The conference was great with my favorite part: meeting people, getting to know them better, and building friendships.  Session content, as usual, spawned a theme in my mind.  This year’s theme: This business is crazy. There are panel discussions of experts, you know, the thought leaders with 30+ years of experience in the business, and as I sat there listening, I thought to myself, “Isn’t this a rerun of something I attended in 2011 in Boston, and in 2009 in Portland, and in 2007…
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Michaels Energy Named a 2013 Hot Firm

By News, Uncategorized No Comments
Michaels Energy Named a 2013 Hot Firm La Crosse, WI - August 15, 2013 - Michaels Energy was named a "Hot Firm" on The Zweig Letter Hot Firm List for the second year in a row. The Zweig Letter 2013 Hot Firm List recognizes the 100 fastest-growing architecture, engineering, planning and environmental consulting firms in the United States and Canada - an industry of over 100,000 firms. These firms have outperformed the economy and competitors to become leaders in their chosen fields. "We're pleased to have received this award for the second year in a row," said Michaels President, Dave…
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Impact Evaluation Confidence and Precision – Fluffy Illusions or Autopsies

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
This week’s rant is brought to you by Ryan Kroll, Michaels’ Program Evaluation Manager.  Last week Ryan issued a Program Brief discussing 90/10 confidence and precision sampling that is the industry norm for energy efficiency program impact evaluation.  The 90/10 simply means the results of the sampled projects have a 90% probability of being within plus or minus 10% of properly representing the entire population – and NOT necessarily the right answer.  Sample representation and the right answer are obviously different things. Here is the perversion in impact evaluation that I’ve never seen written anywhere: The less you learn about…
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Thought Leader – Get on this Train

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant No Comments
The term “thought leader” is, as “paradigm shift” was at one point, the buzzword of the day.  But thought leaders are not paradigm shifters.  To demonstrate, this article in Forbes defining thought leaders, does not include the word, or variation of the word entrepreneur; a para dig em creator.  Using the article’s description, which happens to align with my caricature of a thought leader, I arrive at this simpleton definition:Noun Thought Leader (thot lee-dur) 1. Best-practice Yoda and Grand Master Jedi energy nerd Defined another way, thought leaders are geniuses at what is – not to be confounded with Bill…
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