kW Engineering | Sustainable Buildings & Energy Efficiency Consulting
I think that the energy efficiency industry needs a big wake-up call around changes that are coming to the world of refrigerants. In last week’s post, I discussed how these changes are going to hit the commercial refrigeration market. But the coming changes to HVAC will be just as seismic and I’ve seen little recognition
What Will Happen to HVAC Refrigerants with the HFC Phase Out? Read More »
California is often on the “bleeding edge” of environmental policy, a position that is frankly part of the reason why I live here. But sometimes, that stance can be painful and put local businesses in a position where they need to bear the brunt of progress in difficult ways. One policy change around emissions reduction
California Grocers Will Face Tough Choices in the Wake of the HFC Phase-Out Read More »
On January 1st of 2020, new changes go into effect for Title-24, California’s energy efficiency standard for commercial buildings. Neil Bulger has a nice summary of changes to HVAC, and a bit on lighting. But what’s happening with refrigeration in supermarkets? There are two important changes that are reflecting market shifts and setting the stage
What Changes to Title 24 Commercial Refrigeration Requirements Are Coming in 2019? Read More »
Trend data analysis one of the most powerful approaches for finding wasted energy in buildings. Each year the amount of data that your building automation system (BAS) can provide is more – literally faster, better and cheaper. But how to you make sense of your newfound mountains of data? BAS data also has some idiosyncrasies
Our Top 3 Tools for Analyzing Energy Trend Data Read More »
Graph credit: www.marketwatch.com One of my mantras this year at kW has been to try to minimize uncertainty. Uncertainty is bad for business – it stalls decisions, makes your colleagues nervous, anxious and stressed, and generally sows the seeds for trouble. Well best laid plans… between the government shutdown and a PG&E Chapter 11 “re-organization”,
What Happens to Energy Efficiency When PG&E Files for Bankruptcy? Read More »
Thank you @Doug Scott (VaCom Technologies) for this interesting question: Why is it that companies are not, themselves, putting a price on carbon? If we have reason to think that companies’ fortunes will rise and fall in response to sound planning, why wait for the government? Why not value carbon internally as a means of
Why wait for government to put a price on carbon? Read More »
Yesterday I attended one California’s (CA) most important annual events – the CEDMC fall conference. After a truly inspiring opening discussion by State Senator Henry Stern (look for him to follow Gavin to the CA governor’s office according to those in the know) we dug into some of the key issues of the day. The
In California energy efficiency, timing is everything…and uncertainty is crippling. Read More »
I try to avoid posts that proclaim how the world would be a better place if only… blah, blah, blah (fill in your favorite panacea here). But I’m going to indulge here only because I see our industry trying to adapt to disruptive trends, yet hamstrung with outdated means of communicating price signals to consumers.
Last week I got to attend one of my favorite conferences – the Energy and Store Development conference hosted by the Food Marketing Institute. I love it because it’s a great crowd of people, most of them energy geeks like myself, who’re fascinated by trying to get more cooling for less energy in one of
Top 5 energy and consumer trends impacting your grocery store’s bottom line Read More »
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 better, faster and cheaper if we’re going have an impact
