A New Spin on Energy Efficiency Marketin...

There’s no getting around the fact that for most people, the most compelling reason for being efficient is that they’ll save money. They don’t want to know why they need a programmable thermostat or low-flow shower head. They just want to know that using those things will lead to more money in their pockets. That’s why our...

Taking Efficiency to the Bank

KSV focuses both on Smart Energy and the financial industry, so I was intrigued when I learned yesterday that PNC Bank, the gigantic financial institution with more than 2,900 branches, announced that it would build its first net-zero bank branch.  Net-zero means that the building is expected to produce more energy than it uses.  According to...

When marketing home energy efficiency, d...

  “Small is the new success story.” KSV attended the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change conference in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, and it got us thinking about energy efficiency programs, and how to market them effectively. One of the threads we heard again and again was that people were having success, all over the country...

Smart Grid and the Enthusiasm Gap

Let’s talk smart grid. It’s here already in a lot of places, and coming shortly to many more. It has the potential to drastically change how we consume energy. And yet, there is a great deal of misunderstanding regarding smart grid. Only 40% of Americans have heard of smart grid. For readers of this blog who don’t already know, here are the...

To Promote Efficiency, Don’t Talk ...

A recent discussion in the New York Times, called “The Siren Song of Energy Efficiency,” caught my attention. A handful of leading energy thinkers responded to a question about energy efficiency with a variety of opinions. Here’s the question: “Whatever happened to “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”? Now many...

Bringing the Apple Touch to Home Energy ...

We blogged last summer about Nest Labs, a start-up boasting Apple alums Mike Matas and Tony Fadell. Now Nest Labs has revealed its bid for the smart thermostat market. Their device – the Nest –  is “the world’s first learning thermostat – a thermostat for the iPhone generation,” says Fadell. In line with its Apple lineage, the...