Resource Site for Corporate Energy, Facility and Sustainability Managers
As we do each spring, this week a team of Groom Energy engineers made the pilgrimage to Lightfair in search of “the next big thing” in lighting. We went to training sessions, walked the exhibit floor and talked with smart folks to develop a collective view of what’s going on, what’s hot and what’s not. [...] Read more »
During building energy assessments we often find obvious, no-cost behavior changes savings: A compressor running flat-out for an idled production line. Flood lights illuminating an unused parking lot all year long. Warehouse dock doors that stay open all day. Our very technical recommendations come with a smiley face: Step 1. Shut off the [...] Read more »
Over the last year we’ve participated in an increasing number of interviews, conferences and panels discussing the energy-efficiency finance market, including commercial PACE and on-bill repayment programs. Awareness is high, with many policy, government and utility executives generally convinced that if low-cost capital were more readily available, energy-efficiency adoption across residential, institutional, government and commercial/industrial markets would surge. Limited [...] Read more »
If you weren’t one of last night’s 100+ million Superbowl viewers, by now you’ve probably heard that a stadium wide power outage stalled the game for 34 minutes. Was it a conspiracy by CBS to sell more advertising? One brand team used the dark time to quickly execute an Oreo cookie twitter campaign which said “Power Outage? [...] Read more »
So the fiscal cliff drama has resolved itself temporarily, with both solar and wind incentives living on for another year… In the case of wind, Congress even enhanced the incentive, making the industry’s requested language change, so a wind system need only be “in construction” phase, not “fully commissioned” by end of 2013. Since large wind turbine projects take 18-24 months to [...] Read more »
Six weeks till Christmas – which means time to think about cool energy efficiency gifts for your loved ones. Last year, if you had stuffed family’s stockings with the latest LED light bulbs, you would have been one very hip uncle or aunt. But at $50 each, they would have been better gifts under the [...] Read more »
A few months ago we installed a backup generator for a customer in the food distribution business. Their decision to add the generator was ultimately prompted by yet another New England storm that left them without power. In the wake of hurricane Sandy many folks are wishing they had made the same decision… The psychology involved [...] Read more »
Last week I attended an EDF sponsored workshop discussing their new Investor Confidence Project (ICP). The ICP is focused on encouraging more lenders to finance the building energy efficiency market. Just as mortgage-backed lenders need evidence that underlying mortgages are being paid, lenders for comprehensive energy efficiency projects need data to show that these loans will “perform.” So the [...] Read more »
Today we published our latest Enterprise LED market research, which studies trends in commercial and industrial LED lighting and profiles the top vendors. The report includes our newly developed LED Lamp and Fixture Pricing Index which tracks historical pricing for these products. The idea for our index came during customer interviews. In talking with corporate managers, a theme [...] Read more »
Every day energy, facilities, real estate and sustainability managers receive inbound voicemails from vendors emphasizing that their energy management solutions will help save energy, reduce carbon, save the world, etc….The term energy management is now so overused it has become meaningless. Its easy to understand how we got here. Post the 2008 “track your carbon [...] Read more »
