As efficiency engineers it’s important to be curious, persistent and to get into our client’s shoes. How, why, and can you show me? These questions help me remember an ethos that drives me every day as I solve big energy problems. Here is one great success story...
In California, energy efficiency programs will soon be contracted out to third parties in hopes of increasing the impact of energy efficiency programs and lowering resource costs. In our previous post we discussed why energy savings based on normalized metered energy consumption (NMEC) has the...
I find it to be important for me to point out that this is the second blog post in which I’ve co-opted a song for a blogpost title. Hats off to Bowie for the first one (Ch-, Ch-, Ch-, Changes). This one pays tribute to...
When you’re hiring an energy auditor, you’ll want to make sure your time and money are well spent. So, it’s important to know the key factors that increase your chances of getting a high-quality energy audit. The thing is, everybody thinks they can do an...
The path to becoming an energy engineer isn’t clearly defined, nor is it well known outside our niche in the world of energy efficiency. But if you have a desire to make a positive environmental impact, are good with numbers and enjoy problem solving, pursuing...
Our current regulatory approaches to energy efficiency only allow for marginal progress on an issue that needs addressed in the biggest way. In the parlance of Silicon Valley, we need SCALE and we need regulatory methods to achieve it now. Energy efficiency needs to be...
More often than not, commercial and industrial firms' primary business objective is to drive a high volume of sales. Commercial facilities are focused on ensuring high comfort level for the occupants and the industrial facilities care about their Key Volume Indicators; so energy management is...
What you don’t see or know about your building operation can cost you. We’ve found countless times, in virtually every building type, equipment or control system operations gone awry. Sometimes problems can’t be solved relying on data analysis. Today we’re going under the hood of...
Utilizing the full capabilities of your control system is one of the most cost-effective ways to save energy. We find very few facilities maximize the full capabilities of already installed systems. Nowhere is this more detrimental than in grocery stores where controls operate the commercial...
ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager will be shaking up the energy-use benchmark world by updating their scoring mechanism on August 26, 2018. The bad news is most building owners will see a drop in the current score. The good news is the update is long overdue...