I consider Dave Charnick to be one of the happiest people I work with, and that’s for good reason—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him without a huge smile on his face. Although he can quote Caddyshack by heart, he’s serious about his job and loves working with energy managers. We’re so glad to have him on our team!

Nickname: Carl Spackler, Assistant Greenskeeper, Bushwood Country Club

Hometown: Flushing, New York

What you do at E Source: Besides comedian, humorist, and overall fun guy? I’m a sales manager and sell energy-efficiency and sustainability solutions to major end users, marketers, energy service companies, and consultants.

Why you like working at E Source: The people make it special.

Something most people don’t know about you: Two things: I’ve seen the Grateful Dead play over 150 concerts in six different countries and I once saved a man from bleeding to death after he accidently shot himself in the thigh.

Check out this video of Dave to learn more:

Are you a fan of the E Source Gap and Priority Benchmark, a survey of utility large business customer satisfaction? Did you eagerly await the results of the 2011 study? Have you ever sat around the office daydreaming of the day when E Source would similarly measure the satisfaction of your midsize business customers? If so, then it’s time to get excited! We’ve granted your wish. We’re about to field the E Source Midsize Business Gap and Priority Benchmark: 2012. I’m finalizing the survey questions and preparing to field the survey next month—and I’m already excited! I can’t wait to dig into the results and see what we can learn from them.

With this new study, E Source can help you and your business customer service team identify the top priorities for delivering outstanding value to your midsize business customers. We use a brief online survey of your midsize business customers—businesses that don’t have an assigned account rep—to assess their most important needs. The survey then examines the performance of your utility and your business customer reps in meeting those needs. This allows you ...

As many of our members know, in 2011, E Source “webified” DSMdat—a database of more than 3,000 demand-side management (DSM) programs in the U.S. and Canada. We completed the transition to a fully web-based interface in May, and we’ve spent the past eight months updating the information in the database (as we do every year). The yearly update is quite an undertaking and we’ve still got a few more updates to go before the process begins again for 2012. As the DSMdat product coordinator, I thought this would be a good opportunity to share the processes behind DSMdat, E Source’s most visited website and one of our most utilized resources.

In 2011, the DSMdat website received more than 3,500 page views. That may not sound like a lot (especially in comparison to say, BBC’s Funny Talking Animals, which receives millions of views), but it’s a lot for a subscription-only database about DSM programs. Before DSMdat was fully web-based, the greatest number of page views was around 50, so I’d say we’re moving in the right direction!

To put it simply, maintaining DSMdat is a behemoth of a project. Right now, ...

Mike Weedall recently joined us as a senior advisor, and during his first week here at E Source, he gave a presentation on the state of energy efficiency (EE) in the Pacific Northwest. It was so interesting to hear his insights, especially on efficiency as the “fifth fuel.” Mike has a tremendous amount of leadership experience in many aspects of demand-side management: Before he joined us, he was an executive at the Bonneville Power Administration. Mike definitely has a handle on what it takes to make EE and demand response common practices in the marketplace. We’re so grateful to have him as part of our team!

Nickname: Willy Wags (quite the story here)

Hometown: New Bedford, Massachusetts

What you do at E Source: I’ll assist in delivering enhanced services and support to members.

Why you like working at E Source: I’ve always been a big fan of this organization. The quality of products and the timeliness of the support E Source delivered was always a resource I could count on as a member. I’m excited to be a part of that.

An exciting thing happened last week: The three major utilities in California, Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison all unveiled “Green Buttons” on their websites. The Green Button was a challenge issued by U.S. chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra in November 2011, calling on the utility industry to give customers access to their energy usage data online, specifically by clicking a Green Button on the utility website and downloading their data. Right now, California customers can go online and download up to 13 months of their energy-usage history.

As an avid efficiency wrangler, I’m thrilled to see the deployment of the Green Button. First, this is a big step toward educating customers about the energy they use each day. It’s also encouraging to see major utilities step up to this challenge so quickly and empower their customers with a new tool. But what excites me most about this development is how the energy-use data could potentially be used to spur customers to modify their behavior and reduce energy consumption.

Companies like Opower and Simple Energy have shown the potential of ...

Has your utility been struggling to overhaul its existing demand-side management (DSM) tracking system or implement a new one? You’re not alone—there are numerous utilities out there facing challenges in this area. There are so many moving pieces when it comes to DSM tracking systems that it’s difficult to nail down exactly what’s needed.

That’s why we’re hosting a web conference on Thursday, February 2, at 12:00 p.m. MST, How to Choose the Optimal DSM Tracking System, for members of the E Source Efficiency & Demand-Response Programs Service. We’ll discuss topics such as:

• The different options utilities have for developing tracking systems
• Whether these systems need to be linked to existing customer relationship management (CRM) software
• And much more

I’m excited that we lined up representatives from three utilities who will discuss their experiences in implementing three different types of tracking systems. Their knowledge will provide you with some guidance for starting a similar project.

I hope you can block out the time and join us next week! ...

Mary Horsey is part of our incredible research team here at E Source, and she manages the Technology Assessment group. One of the reasons that our researchers are so amazing is that they truly have a passion for the subject matters they’re responsible for—and that couldn’t be more true about Mary (just look at her answer to my question about something most people don’t know about her). One of the things I love about Mary is her stories. We attend Toastmasters meetings together, and I’ve learned some pretty interesting things about her, specifically about how mischievous she was as a kid. You can tell she hasn’t lost that trait: Mary has an adventurous spirit and an obvious love of life.

Nickname: None that I know of!

Hometown: Monroe, Wisconsin

What you do at E Source: I’m on the Technology Assessment Team, and I research existing and emerging energy-efficiency technologies to determine whether they’re appropriate for our utility program managers and corporate energy managers to include in their programs and facilities.

Why you like working at E Source: ...

When I lived in the DC metro area a few years ago, I loved listening to the Elliot in the Morning radio show. It’s raunchy and not exactly intellectually stimulating, but it’s hilarious and entertaining—especially when you’re sitting in traffic on the Beltway. When the iHeartRadio app came out a few years ago, I was thrilled to find Elliot and the gang were available to listen to 24/7, anywhere in the country, which is perfect for my Colorado commute.

At E Source, we recently received a question from a member about energy and environmental podcasts, and it made me rethink my on-demand radio-listening habits. Maybe I could listen to something entertaining and actually learn something useful at the same time—what a concept! (Cue compact fluorescent lightbulb turning on over my head.)

Here’s a list of podcasts covering energy or environmental topics that you, too, might be interested in (special thanks to Dulcey Simpkins for helping me develop this list):

• NPR: Environment
• EE Markets from Real Energy Writers
• Scientific American has a variety of podcasts that are discipline-specific, ...

At E Source, we get tons of Member Inquiries (also known as on-demand research questions) from utilities asking us about the deemed energy savings or the effective useful life (EUL) of certain technologies. Most often when we receive these inquiries, we direct people to technical reference manuals (TRMs), which provide measure-specific energy-savings assumptions for specific jurisdictions or regions in North America. TRMs are created by state and regional groups of stakeholders (such as the Vermont Energy Investment Corp.) and are generally funded from utility demand-side management budgets. Savings numbers are often analyzed and verified by independent consultants for accuracy. These manuals provide a great point of comparison for program planning and design purposes to ascertain the validity of energy-savings assumptions.

We answered so many inquiries by pointing people to TRMs that we decided to compile as many existing TRMs that we could find into one report. As far as I know, a list like this doesn’t exist elsewhere! Our very own Todd Camnitz wrote the report, Repository of Publicly Available Technical Reference Manuals, and it’s available to members ...

Ask an expert what the difference is between a kilowatt (kW) and a kilowatt-hour (kWh), and he or she will tell you that a kW is a measure of power, whereas a kWh is a measure of energy. Great. However, I know I don’t think in terms of power and energy. Until recently, I didn’t even realize there was a difference between the two. What the expert means is that kW is a rate of consumption, and kWh gives you the amount you consumed.

To make these abstract ideas understandable, I’m going to annoy a lot of experts with the following explanation.

Think of kW as the miles-per-gallon (mpg) rating of a car, and kWh as the actual gallons of fuel consumed. (The analogy is imprecise, but arguably effective.) These definitions may be the opposite of what you would expect. I was initially confused because I thought kWh meant “kilowatts per hour” in the same way that mpg means “miles per gallon.” But this is not the case. Mathematically, mpg means miles divided by gallons. But where gallon in mpg is in the denominator, the hour in kWh is actually in the numerator, multiplied by kW. Therefore, ...