When I first met Pepper Sessions, I asked her a question that she gets quite frequently: “Is that your real name?” And yes, indeed it is. When her mom was pregnant, she was at a baseball tournament and someone named Pepper came up to bat. She thought that would be a perfect name for her daughter. Pepper is actually my office neighbor, and she came up with a series of Morse code signals for us to use against our shared wall when one of us needs something. Okay, that’s not really true, but she’s so smart and quirky that I could totally see her doing something like that.

Nicknames: Peps, Pep, Pepsi, Pepperoni, P-pod, Pepalani, and about 100 more—seriously

Hometown: I was born in New Mexico, but grew up in California, Arizona, and Mississippi. I graduated high school in Clinton, Mississippi, so that’s usually where I tell people I’m from, though it always involves a long explanation as to why I don’t have a southern accent. In the past 15 years, I’ve lived in Hawaii, California, New York City, Utah, New Zealand, and now Colorado.

What you do at E Source: I’m the accounting ...

We recently published a press release presenting our finding that Americans from all walks of life and all regions are already well on their way to adopting new, more-energy-efficient lamps. Congress has been debating the merits of keeping or repealing laws about new lightbulb standards, but they don’t seem to be considering that 81 percent of households already have at least one compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), up from about 50 percent just a few years back. Even in the two states with the lowest CFL penetration (North and South Dakota), more than two-thirds of households have at least one. And in Alaska and California, approximately 87 percent of households already have one CFL, and nearly 50 percent have six or more!

Though the news out of Washington would have everyone thinking this is a Republican-versus-Democrat issue, the data from real Americans don’t bear this out—conservatives, moderates, and liberals use CFLs at almost exactly the same level. I guess almost everyone believes that getting more for less is a good idea.

Efficiency standards worked for refrigerators and air conditioners, so why not for lightbulbs? In the U.S., lighting ...

“Wow, you still support IE6?” I can’t count how many times I have heard that in the past few years. In a year from now, I'll be relieved that I won’t hear that ever again.

We recently reached a tipping point where the cost and time of supporting Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) as well as the limitations on what coding techniques we could use to deliver features via the web were really restricting what we could do and how fast we could do it, so we made the decision to start phasing out support of IE6. read more >>

The 24th Annual E Source Forum is only 8 weeks away, and I can’t speak highly enough of this event. Are you already registered? Well, you rock. Are you still on the fence? Then I want to tell you what I think are the top reasons to come to our (awesome) conference.

1. The agenda is seriously stellar. With five tracks to choose from—technology, marcom, smart grid, customer service, and demand-side management—you’ll get practical insights from experts, customers, and peer utilities. No kidding; you’ll get functional, ready-to-be-implemented tips and best practices that you can start using right away.
2. It comes HIGHLY recommended by people you trust (your peers at other utilities). My all-time favorite quote from an attendee came last year from Liz Jambor at Austin Energy. She said:
   
   “The E Source Forum is an excellent way to learn more about the energy world than you thought possible. Go, be a sponge, explode your brain with new ideas.”
   
   Come on, it doesn’t get any better than that. You can also check out these short videos of Alan Rowley from Colorado Springs Utilities ...

Gary Sunshine, executive vice president of E Source Shared Services and one of the five owners of the company, is the first person at E Source every day. I have no doubt it’s his car in the parking lot because his license plate says “SNSHYN.” Gary is full of incredibly interesting stories, facts, and things to ponder. His middle name is Ray, which seems fairly uninteresting until you consider his last name. His parents clearly have the same great sense of humor that Gary does.

Nickname: Sunshine

Hometown: Denver, Colorado

What you do at E Source: I work on special projects such as Alfresco, our internal enterprise content management system, as well as other tools that are focused on increasing internal efficiencies.

Why you like working at E Source: This is one of the few places where I can do something good—actually improve the conditions of the environment and the population of the world—and I can also support my family, so that’s a plus!

Something most people don’t know about you: I’m a third-generation native of Colorado, and ...

I put together several corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories this spring for some of our Fortune 500 clients and the 80–20 rule was in full effect. That is, 80 percent of the effort was spent on 20 percent of inventory. Actually, now that I think about it, make that the 90–3 rule—90 percent of the effort was spent on just 3 percent of the inventory.

In performing GHG inventories for large commercial corporations, the emissions commonly break down like this:

• Electricity (Scope 2) accounts for 80 to 90 percent of the total inventory
• Natural gas emissions (Scope 1) account for 5 to 10 percent
• Transportation usually accounts for most of the remainder

Refrigerants, as they are most often accounted for, come in at 2 percent or less.

Although our commercial clients have hundreds to thousands of facilities, electricity and natural gas are fairly easy and straightforward to deal with. With so many facilities, corporations must track utility billing and budgeting centrally, so those data are often relatively easy to extract and process. Unfortunately, central tracking often does not extend to other components ...

After nearly two amazing years living in Boulder and working at E Source, I’m moving to San Francisco this fall with my boyfriend so that he can begin a master’s of architecture program there. Beginning next week, my very capable colleague Melanie Wemple will take over as the project manager of DSMdat and author of these monthly blog posts.

Over the last few weeks, my boyfriend and I have been thinking about what sorts of amenities we’d like our new apartment to have. Most of the items on our list are typical—reasonable rent, no carpet, a gas stove. But one of our requests is a bit unusual: We want an apartment in which we can install a clothesline or laundry drying rack with at least 30 feet of hanging space (enough to dry a medium-sized load of laundry). This, we figure, will save us about $100 a year in laundromat costs and keep our clothes in better shape. The 15 minutes a week I’ll spend hanging up my clothes will be a good opportunity to put on my cell phone headset and catch up with friends and family, too.

I’ve actually been line-drying my clothes (indoors!) for almost four years and have been on a crusade to spread ...

E Source provides services to utilities as well as major corporate energy users. One of the fearless leaders working with our corporate clients is Donna Buckley. She leads the analytic support for our energy procurement team. She’s also really active and heads up a group of exercisers—they walk, run, and do high-impact exercises like Kenpo and plyometrics several times per week. I’ve joined in a couple of times and it’s high energy, just like Donna. She’s also part of the E Source Advancing Women Everywhere (AWE) group and always has great ideas. Busy girl!

Nickname: DBuck

Hometown: Lexington, Kentucky

What you do at E Source: I’m the senior manager of Enterprise Energy Management Services. I focus on managing the process for the energy supply procurement business.

Why you like working at E Source: E Source is a great place to work because you are surrounded by a wonderful group of people. They’re extremely positive and supportive.

Something most people don’t know about you: I’m a HUGE Kentucky Wildcats fan.

To ...

One of the questions I frequentlyhear from E Source members is “How do I sign up for your newsletters?” This is an excellent question because our newsletters are the best way to stay up to date on E Source events, latest research, and special announcements. Even though I work at E Source, I still read the newsletters because they have so much useful information! Thankfully, you can manage all of your newsletter subscriptions at My E Source.

Here’s how in four easy steps:

1. Go to My E Source (you must be logged in to www.esource.com).
2. In the My Newsletters box, located on the left-hand side of the page, click “Manage.”
3. Select which E Source newsletters you’d like to receive. If a box is already checked, you’re currently subscribed to that newsletter. (Remember, you can always unsubscribe by unchecking a newsletter’s box.)
4. When you’re done, click “Save Subscriptions” at the bottom of the page.

You can also unsubscribe at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every newsletter.

This year will be my first E Source Forum and I’m excited to be in charge of setting up one of the panel sessions—Retail Smackdown.

I’m particularly interested in this topic because I’m currently researching retail partnerships. We’re hosting Claiming Energy Savings from Retail Partnerships, a web conference for E Source Efficiency & Demand-Response Programs Service members. In this web conference, we’ll hear the perspective of two North American utilities, and then in September at the E Source Forum, we’ll see what major retailers have to say and get their point of view. It’ll be interesting to compare and contrast these two perspectives.

I’ve developed this list of the top 10 reasons to attend the Retail Smackdown session and the E Source Forum. Check it out and let me know which reason is the most compelling for you!

10. It’s not too early and not too late—Retail Smackdown starts at 10:30 a.m. Check out the entire Forum agenda.
9. It’s a panel—no PowerPoints; just straight talk from the nation’s leading ...