Broken Buildings
Are you in a broken building? Don’t answer no, until you benchmark! I spend quite a bit of my time educating people about their buildings and how to improve them. I get a lot of questions like: “We’ve done a lot of projects, are we missing anything?” Or, “Are projects X, Y, and Z worth […]
The Most Confusing Incentives IMHO #3
Packaged Rooftop Unit Advanced Controls Retrofit What does this incentivize? This incentive provides funds for installing–yep–advanced controls on existing packaged rooftop units (RTUs). The affected RTUs must be between 7.5 and 25 tons and serve constant volume systems. To be eligible for it, you must implement the following three things: Variable speed controls on the […]
The Most Confusing Incentives IMHO #2
This is the second in a series of three posts about incentives that I think are confusing. You can find the first post here. Comprehensive Energy Savings Incentive What does this incentivize? At its core, the Comprehensive Energy Savings incentive gives you a bonus for completing more than one efficiency project at a time in your building. […]
The Most Confusing Incentives IMHO #1
When I was five years old, I watched Kristi Yamaguchi score 5.8s and 5.9s in figure skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics. I knew 0 was the worst and 6 was the best, so she was practically perfect, and then she won gold. Easy! Then at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Kim Yuna won […]
Got a Chicago Energy Benchmarking Notice?
Quick – pop quiz! Which sector in the U.S. uses the most produced energy? A) Transportation B) Industry C) Buildings The correct answer? It’s C) Buildings. Surprised? Most people are! In fact, as of 2013, buildings in the U.S. used almost half (~48%) of the energy that was produced.[1] That includes all single-family homes, multi-family buildings, and commercial […]
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day
I read an article a few weeks ago in the Atlantic that was really troubling. It described a study where a University of Illinois psychologist described a “really, really smart person” at work to groups of children. He then showed two photos of men and two photos of women to the children and asked who they thought […]
What Happened in ASHRAEVegas: A Technical Member’s View
This post is part three of What Happened in ASHRAEVegas: a series about the 2017 ASHRAE Winter Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Cyclone Energy Group is involved with ASHRAE at the local, regional, and international level, and we’ll be sharing our various perspectives throughout the series. This conference in Vegas marked my 26th conference! I attended my first […]
What Happened in ASHRAEVegas: An Insider’s View
This post is part two of What Happened in ASHRAEVegas: a series about the 2017 ASHRAE Winter Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Cyclone Energy Group is involved with ASHRAE at the local, regional, and international level, and we’ll be sharing our various perspectives throughout the series. My first ASHRAE conference was in 2005. I’d gone to the AHR Expo […]
