Malama Uila® News
The Newsletter of Aloha Systems
Vol. 3, No.
3, July 2004
We have just
completed our evaluations of three 2002-03 non-utility programs that were
part of the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) energy
efficiency portfolio. All three
programs demonstrated their success, and we enjoyed their evaluation.
The Los
Angeles County Energy Efficiency Program installed energy-efficiency
measures in county facilities that included: high-efficiency lighting,
variable-speed drives, control systems, and a new 1200-ton chiller.
We had the opportunity to visit a diverse array of county
facilities, install metering, and analyze operations.
The California State University Chancellor’s Office program
installed energy-saving devices on lights at seven CSU campuses in the SCE
and SDG&E service territories.
Through this program we had the opportunity to work with the facilities
staffs of these universities, which sometimes included interesting side
tours of other new equipment and systems they were proud to highlight.
The Six
Cities Energy Project, sponsored by The Energy Coalition based here in
Irvine,
was the most diverse and socially interesting evaluation.
The program works with students, multifamily residents, small
businesses, and municipal facilities.
Part of the Coalition’s core belief is what we have termed as an
“evangelical” component of energy efficiency–people telling their families,
friends, and neighbors about what they learned and thus inducing further
energy efficiency. We surveyed 300
residential participants by telephone and were pleased to find that 82%
indicated that they had told someone about their participation.
Of these, 23% actually believe the people they told went out and
bought energy-efficient lights or equipment.
We are excited that we will again be evaluating the Community Energy
Partnership Program for 2004-05.
This is a partnership between The Energy Coalition, Southern California
Edison, and several local city governments that is a continuation and
expansion of the Six Cities program.
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Study Shows Energy
Efficiency Pays Off for Building Owners
A study by
a financial research firm has found that commercial real estate firms that
were “leaders in energy management achieved superior stock market and
financial performance over the last two years.” Twelve companies were
analyzed. The stock of the top six in energy management grew on average
30% between June 2000 and June 2002, while the stock of the lower six
decreased an average of 4% in the same time period. The report is “Energy
Management and Investor Returns: The Real Estate Sector” by Invest
Strategic Value Advisors, Inc. of New York. It is available at
www.innovestgroup.com under
publications.
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Welcome to the Aloha Systems
newsletter, the Malama Uila News. Look for it each quarter for updates on
Aloha’s hard work, interesting electric news, staff profiles, ways to save
energy and fun facts about the world of electricity.
If you have any questions or comments or would like to request more
information about our firm, please feel free to phone, fax or visit us on
the web. We welcome your comments and questions!
Phone: (949) 851-2221 Fax: (949) 851-5008
Office Hours:
Mon.-Thu. 7:30am-5:30pm, Fri. 7:30am-12pm (PST)
Website: http://www.alohasys.com
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This quarter we highlight Gina Jojola, a multi-talented research associate
at Aloha for over two years. Gina serves as the project manager of The
Energy Coalition evaluation. Gina also assists with energy audits,
strategic energy plans, load research, economic analysis, and customer
opinion research as well as market transformation studies. Gina received
her B.A. in liberal studies with an emphasis in exercise sports science
from Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, CA. In her leisure time, Gina
serves as a referee of women's' NCAA college basketball games around the
Southland and has recently officiated scrimmages for the WNBA Los Angeles
Sparks.
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Deregulation, An Editorial
I was preparing to write a brief
article about the California Energy Commission’s new report on the electric
grid for this coming summer (available at
www.energy.ca.gov/reports/2004-06-03_700-04-005.PDF). The report talks
about how a hot summer will be tight, but believes that shedding
interruptible loads will be sufficient, without needing rotating outages.
In other words, a “Stage 2” power alert, but not a “Stage 3.” Before
sitting down I picked up a new IEEE magazine, and an editorial piece caught
my attention because the engineer spoke my opinion so well.
Then in this morning’s email is
the California Public Utilities Commission’s Interim Opinion Regarding
Electricity Reliability Issues (available at
www.cpuc.ca.gov/published/comment decision/37631-02.htm). And sitting
on my couch are about 500 pages of an Edison filing regarding this issue
that I have not read, but kept out because it sounded so interesting. I
have been very busy with energy efficiency and program evaluation, but
reliability is much more complex technically and is great academic reading.
The problem is not technical,
though. I quote from the CPUC interim opinion, “Many parties have raised
the issue that the available information for rational decision-making is
limited. For example, utilities argue that the FERC prohibits utility power
procurement employees from having access to information from their own
company's transmission departments. These restrictions make it impossible
for utility employees engaged in procurement to confer with their
transmission colleagues who might be better able to ‘discern’ or ‘reasonably
anticipate’ reliability issues and CAISO costs.” (§3.1.1.)
So I conclude with my opinion,
copied from the one in the IEEE magazine by an Australian utility engineer
and law professor: “The old regulated electricity supply industry had an
express contract with its customers whereby there was an implied obligation
to supply… The new entrepreneurial class of manager has argued that such
systems were ‘over engineered,’ and therefore there is, or was, no room for
cost efficiencies… They have created perverse incentives in which network
investment is deferred in order to maximize short-run profits. In the
deregulated market environment, the engineering and commercial roles have
largely been reversed… Power system engineers familiar with load flow
analysis know that the operational management of a power system resides in
the laws of physics, not as a commercial contract trading in discrete
products or goods. Thus, risk-management evaluation as an engineering
exercise in the control of a system is markedly different in terms of its
criteria than that entailed in commercial decision making or trading on the
futures exchange.” (Ronald H. Stillman, “In My View,” IEEE Power & Energy
Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 4, July 2004.)
Maybe if we do have rolling
blackouts this summer, the people of California will finally accept that
deregulation was a total failure and we should return to the old days when
the power system was designed and operated by engineers, not politicians,
lawyers, and market traders. Then, once realizing this failure, we can lead
the nation and world in reversing this disastrous concept of “deregulation.”
X
Mark Shirilau 06/29/2004
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Dr. Mark Shirilau assists the
California Contractors State License Board
 The California Contractors State
License Board is again revising its tests for electrical (C-10)
contractors, and Mark recently spent two days in Sacramento,
California, working with officials to write new exam questions. He
always finds it “a fascinating experience” to work with the board’s
psychologists, who are experts in testing. Of course, now he’s
better than the average professor at writing tests that are harder
to take by just guessing.
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What do CSU Fullerton, NCAA Baseball, and ESPN
all have in common?
If you guessed
Aloha Systems, you’re right. The California State University has asked
Aloha to evaluate the new energy saving lighting system installed in the CSUF baseball stadium. ESPN and the NCAA have certain requirements for
stadium lights in order for proper broadcasts of baseball games to occur,
thus Aloha has been asked to measure the lighting within the stadium in
reference to these standards. Aloha Systems congratulates the CSU
Fullerton’s baseball teams, who have just won the College World Series in
Omaha, Nebraska!
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View Previous Newsletters:
Volume 1 No. 1 - May, 2002
Volume 2 No. 1 - June 2003
Volume 3 No. 2 - April 2004
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