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benchmarking

A Possum Bucket of Behavioral Joy

By Energy Rant No Comments
Rant topics come in waves. I have no control over how or when others follow what I’m writing, but when they publish something related, I pounce. We’re bleeding-edge fresh here, so I must respond to ACEEE’s most recent published paper, Reducing Energy Waste through Municipally Led Behavior Change Programs.This week is not only about behavior, it includes a cornucopia of goodies, like all the Thanksgiving leftovers. At Michaels, we call these goodies, including Jell-O and pie, carefully layered into a repurposed Folgers can, a beloved possum bucket. Strategic layering is crucial for a successful possum bucket treasure.  While sour cream…
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ENERGY STAR Gets it Right – Owners Complain

By Energy Rant No Comments
Show me the money, Jerry! That is what I have to say about building energy performance. I don’t care for bling and doohickeys. What is the bottom line at the meter? I surmise that ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager was conceived and developed with the best of intentions to score and rank buildings, at the meter level, for energy performance considering vast factors including building type, hours of use, climate zone and so on. However, as noted in the Lake Wobegon post a few years ago, not all, but most buildings are above average . In that case, the average building…
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Motivating Efficiency and Incinerating Obstinance

By Energy Rant 3 Comments
A few weeks ago in Complexities of Home Energy Retrofits, I wrote about the many factors to consider when making deep investments in home energy efficiency. You didn’t think I just made all that up, right? The basis for that was an 85-year-old home I recently purchased. Regarding floor space, it forces efficiency. It has 1,200 square feet of finished space on a 770 sf footprint with a full basement. First, I’m going to write about features I changed toward efficiency. Then, I will tell you why. Then, I will write about how the rest of the world might view…
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Valuing ENERGY STAR in Trump’s Budget

By Energy Rant No Comments
I think nearly everyone reading this knows Trump’s budget blueprint calls for eliminating the popular ENERGY STAR® program. This is an enormous topic, so let’s dive in and see where Jeff takes us. Absurdities I have no idea what Trump is thinking – that eliminating this program will do anything for profligate, runaway, candy-for-all federal spending. The Huffy Post and NPR both claim the program costs about $50 million a year to administer. I could not confirm this with a conservative news source, in 15 minutes of precious research time. Perhaps the reason is the budget cut is so absurdly…
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Benchmarking Flaws and Best Practices; Pot Growers Discover Sunshine

By Energy Rant No Comments
The City of Chicago recently issued its annual report on commercial building benchmarking. I pick on Chicago because (1) its upper-Midwest location has a climate like that of many of our readers, and (2) because it uses ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager, which I addressed several times before. With Portfolio Manager, everybody seems to get a trophy, and results are troublesome to me. Also, for reference, I published this post last fall, pointing out the failures of energy codes to move the energy intensity needle. Using data from the Energy Information Administration, that post showed that buildings built in the past…
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Energy Audits and Complication Proclivity Syndrome

By Energy Rant No Comments
This week, we continue the discussion of ASHRAE Standard 211, Standard for Commercial Building Energy Audits. For ease of consuming this post, I suggest destroying 1/900,000th of a conifer by printing last week’s post, which includes a super summary of the approach, process, and contents of the three levels of energy audits in one table. The Nerd’s Arms Race One thing is certain regarding human nature: people love to complicate the hell out of things. Consider the tax code, code of federal regulations, and any part or level of government. The private sector follows similarly, maybe with different reasons. For…
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audits or colonoscopy

The Results of Your Energy Colonoscopy Are In

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week I was working on corporate tasks, so I needed to go into my vault of gems for pontification.  The subject that emerged is energy audits and certifications, specifically from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).  The document is the Standard for Commercial Building Energy Audits, Standard 211P.  It was up for public review in August of this year. There are a couple of things our industry has tried to unsuccessfully accomplish over the years.  One is drop simple payback as a means to communicate financial benefits of implementing energy efficiency (or any) projects.  This…
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Benchmarking Clowns

By Energy Rant One Comment
It’s Halloween. Hundreds of thousands of people have to figure out a different costume because a clown plague has infected the country. While I don’t consume tabloid news, I did hear that in some cities, the clowns are getting beat up. I thought, now that isn’t a bad idea, but I wouldn’t advise that. When I was a kid, Halloween antics included dozens of mushy tomatoes and cucumbers left behind in the garden. These have the impact of water balloons, and they make a fine mess. For this post, I referenced my program booklet for ACEEE’s 2016 Summer Study on…
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ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Benchmarks Lake Wobegon

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant 2 Comments
Not that my opinion is worth anything, but the results of Chicago’s 2014 commercial building benchmarking report are excellent.  The report indicates that most of the 348 buildings that were benchmarked for the study were benchmarked using ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager.  The cross-cutting data provided reveals interesting facts that are not expounded upon – but I will. The first thing is rather stunning.  The median ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager score for 348 buildings, accounting for 260 million square feet of building space, was/is 76.  By definition, the median score of all buildings in the Portfolio Manager database is 50.  The…
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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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