This year we flew the whole Groom Energy field engineering team to Las Vegas for LightFair, the 25th annual lighting industry show. While Vegas is a fun location for our team meeting, our real plan was to conduct an LED scavenger hunt, sending our engineers onto LightFair’s 500+ vendor filled exhibit hall in search of the latest, coolest LED lighting technologies.
On a recent plant visit our engineers followed a rumbling noise from a backroom to discover a large air compressor running flat out. The 300 horsepower (HP) system was pushing 100psi air to a set of production lines located at the other end of the facility. Serious industrial production stuff.
Last week I attended EDF/Citibank’s 3rd Energy Efficiency Financeconference in NYC. Since their inaugural event a few years ago this conference has always provided a good gauge on the market’s rate of progress.
During World War II energy security meant access to oil for our fighting troops. Years later the 1970′s oil crisis highlighted our supply risk with the Middle East.
Like for many businesses, end of year is a busy time at Groom Energy. Our engineering team is scrambling to satisfy utilities’ requirements, our back office is beginning year-end closing and our customers are pushing us to complete projects with budgets that disappear if unused.
Last week we had our year-end team meeting, reviewing 2013 and discussing our draft 2014 business plans. We brainstormed about energy efficiency market trends and came up with three things to watch for in 2014 – one economic, one application and one fun, futuristic idea.
This week I attended a USGBC hosted discussion on PACE financing held in downtown Boston. Based just on Massachusetts Senator Brian Joyce’s opening remarks attendees got the clear impression that PACE is on a roll again…
A few weeks ago one of our thoughtful engineers sent me a note wondering aloud about the correlation of sustainability-minded companies to above average stock price performance. Like others with an environmental bias he hoped to feel good about buying shares in publicly traded, relatively greener companies while still making a strong financial return (and further driving down the cost of capital for these same companies.)
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.
Harvard economist Robert Stavins recently published a study assessing the impact when US cities require their real estate owners to perform periodic energy analysis on their buildings. As Boston considers passing its own energy benchmarking ordinance, Stavin studied other existing programs and concluded “there is currently no real evidence that these mandatory programs lead to any changes whatsoever in energy use.’’