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incentives

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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incentives

Targeting Incentives – The Retired Farmer in the Mechanical Room with a Crescent Wrench

By Energy Rant One Comment
As we transition out of the dollars-like-dog-biscuits for widgets era into an integrated, connected, behavior and knowledge based era (EE Wave 2), we must reconsider incentives. We must reconsider what incentives are, and who gets them. I am only able to get started on this topic with a specific true story, but first… Sacred Cow #9: EE Programs are not Welfare Programs The status quo dictates that incentives must go to customers paying the electric or natural gas bills. In other words, like a welfare program, dollars must flow from the masses within a population to a smaller group of…
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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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The Rogue Choir Boy

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff One Comment
I spent last week at the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference, IEPEC, as in, I-E-P-E-C to hard core evaluators or I-Peck for the rest of us. Ninety-five percent of the conference including content and networking was great.  Of course with this being the Energy Rant, I will beat on the remaining 5%. Recapping, there are generally two portions of program evaluation: impact and process.  Impact evaluation, which is what we at Michaels do, involves the assessment of savings (impacts) programs achieve, including what the measure actually saves (gross savings) and what impact the program had on the savings (net savings). …
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Horse and Buggy EE Programs

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Government, Utility Stuff No Comments
In many states, energy efficiency programs are meeting annual savings goals and their incentive cash is depleted in a fraction of the year.  States where energy efficiency programs are a new offering are especially quick to meet goals.  These states include Ohio, Michigan and Illinois.  These states rely heavily on lighting, which accounts for somewhere in the range of 90% of the total savings.  Even mature states like Wisconsin and California still get well over half their savings from lighting and other prescriptive measures (rebates).  Wisconsin surpassed goals and ran out of incentives last program year. There are many ways…
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Fortune 100 Energy Efficiency

By Energy Rant No Comments
One of the downsides of the surging awareness and growth in energy efficiency and renewable energy, in my opinion, are all the Johnny Come Lately energy services arms of giant corporations.  Companies include Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, Eaton, and Chevron.  These giants have revenues of $45 Billion, $53 Billion, $12 Billion and a meager $176 Billion, respectively.  Poor Chevron’s revenue dropped from $275 Billion from the year prior.  Maybe they should focus on their core business and leave the energy saving to the rest of us.  Among these, only measly Eaton isn’t in the Fortune 100 (Eaton comes in at…
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Black Monday Stampede

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Stimulus, Tax Stuff, Utility Stuff No Comments
July 1992: Tickets for U2’s ZooTV show at RFK stadium in Washington, DC go on sale by Ticketmaster.  The tickets are snapped up in a few hours, as fast as the phone lines could handle the traffic.  This was before anyone knew what the internet was (no Al Gore jokes).  Fortunately, a second date was announced and the roommate waited for the crack of 12:00:00 AM for a shot at the second batch, successfully. March 1, 2010:  Federally funded rebates become available for efficient appliances in Iowa and Minnesota.  Phone lines jammed with 10 times expected volume and internet traffic…
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Energy Efficiency Stimulus and Oversight

By Energy Rant, LEED, Stimulus One Comment
Most energy efficiency programs are required by regulators to be evaluated to ensure ratepayer money is being spent wisely and reported savings are being achieved.  If only such oversight were to happen for the millions/billions/gazillions being shelled out to state and local governments in the name of energy efficiency. State and local governments have Amazon-wide budget gaps to fill, and I can assure you that earmarks (dirty word) for energy efficiency will find their way to plug budget holes to keep buildings open, replace roofs, buy new lawn mowers and pickup trucks, and avoid staff reductions. We in Wisconsin have…
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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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Tax Deduction Pennies

By Energy Rant, Tax Stuff No Comments
Recently, we received our umpteenth “request for proposal” (RFP) to provide the engineering required to capture the elusive $1.80 tax deduction on new or remodeled buildings.  We spend a lot of time, money and effort to drive business through our doors but I’m not sure I want to see another one of these. Like the rest of the universally incomprehensible tax code, the engineering piece of this is relatively complex.  If we did this all the time, it wouldn’t be a problem.  But it seems we get the next RFP just as the rules are overwritten in my long-term memory…
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