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Refrigerator Sitcoms and Lethal Toaster Ovens
I’ve read enough energy-saving tip lists to fill a Webster’s dictionary[1]. In this rant, I dissect some common ones, some uncommon ones, and provide some myself. Cook with small appliances – toaster...
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Best Practice Hamburger Helper
The phrase that always has me reaching for a complimentary bag that can be found in the seat pocket in front of you on an airplane is “Best Practice”. Are you following “best practice”? Are you...
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Holy Cow, Fumble!!!!
Yale and Environmental Defense Fund socialites[1] have published an article for Nature (you can purchase the article with a federally backed low-interest loan or borrowing against the negative equity...
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Industrial Energy Efficiency – Stay Out of the Ditch
To win people over and get them to join your cause, it is best to not clobber them over the head as the beginning of this article for the top five measures for industrial energy efficiency does. The...
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Project Performance and Customer Satisfaction – Three Strikes and Yer In, or Out
Last week I attended the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s (ACEEE) Summer Study for Industry, which had excellent content, but one phrase prompted me to this week’s topic, one that’s...
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Building Energy Codes – A Blutonian D-
Building energy codes and the legal age for buying and consuming alcoholic beverages have something in common. If you read this blog regularly, you probably know what it is. In case you are new, I...
View ArticleDecoupling; A Love Story
Perhaps I am naïve, but to be more effective it seems interveners would do well to understand motives of profit-driven enterprises and their customers. Consider, for example, this recent article in...
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Cooling System Temperature Control- No Savings
Let’s skip the energy supply side this week and talk about thermostats used for cooling. Let’s broaden the discussion to include both programmable thermostats and “smart” or “learning” thermostats. The...
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Retro-Commissioning v Commissioning; Similar Purposes, Vastly Different...
Last week, I was reviewing a scope of work for retro-commissioning, also cleverly known as RCx – and it moved me to pulling hair out by the fistful. “That’s it”, I thought. “I’m going to relieve my...
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Clean Energy Disconnect Between Say and Do
This article, Americans could pay more for clean energy. But will they really?, from Utility Dive reminds me of my own life experiences with squirrelly people. They talk a good game, but where is the...
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HVAC’s Cure for Cancer
In January, I wrote about code compliance and that while energy codes keep ratcheting down energy intensity in theory, reality is misery. That post was a thinly veiled advertisement for my AESP...
View ArticleDistributed Energy; Batteries and Bread Machines
The post Distributed Energy; Batteries and Bread Machines appeared first on Michaels Energy.
View ArticleCustomer Success and Satisfaction – Monitoring Required
The post Customer Success and Satisfaction – Monitoring Required appeared first on Michaels Energy.
View ArticleBuilding Energy Models – Less Useful Than You Think
The convergence of several issues, and AESP’s Summer Conference, Technology – The Great Game Changer, gave me no choice. I have to do this – talk about the many issues involving building energy models,...
View ArticleCommercial Code Compliance and New Construction Program Failures
Earlier this year, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey of 2012. The prior release was 2003. The data do not paint a pretty picture for...
View ArticleAutomated M&V – In Your Dreams
Last week, we explored the state of EM&V 2.0 and its considerable, to say the least, constraints. This week, we look more intensely at fallacious “automated M&V”. Automated M&V is an...
View ArticleBenchmarking Clowns
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...
View ArticleEnergy and Demand Resource Soup
The AESP 2017 National Conference is in the rear view mirror. While I was, unfortunately, not able to attend many sessions, most of that time was spent talking with a lot of people. I absorbed a lot of...
View ArticleGrid Power Generation – Stories Untold
Most of you reading this owe your lives to the phenomenon described in this post. Therefore, it is worth understanding precisely how grid power is generated, and what it looks like. And of course, you...
View ArticlePower Factor, Beer, Homes, Buckets, Bridges, and Ladders
The mélange of terms in the title of this post have been used by others to explain power factor. Most of them are awful analogies, and that is what sparked me to attempt to figure this out for myself...
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