The other morning I was watching the news on the Vice Presidential debate, and the TV screen was panning across a document that cited ENERGY MODELING! Now, I had only watched part of the debate, so this really gauged my interest, "How did building energy simulation [energy modeling] tie into the debate?

For those of you who watched it or didn't watch it. The debate (according to Twitter) went something like this:

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[Okay, let's get serious. The...

If you google “How to save energy” - most of the results you get are either  common sense  - or only half true. I just read one that said to make sure that you "air dry" dishes instead of heating them. Really? Reading between the lines, you are basically saying that you think your clients are stupid? It's time we start giving credit to people asking this question.

Here at energy-models.com, we study “How to save energy” for a living, and we know that it’s not always cut and dry, and we're pretty sure that most of you are smart enough to understand more than "Change your lightbulbs"

For instance, did you know that for most of  U.S.A. - adding insulation can actually INCREASE your...

Call me an energy nerd.... I've read tons of articles on saving energy, and they involve buying various gadgets (many of which I own), but what I am going to list here is 5 things (actually 6) you can do to your own house that take only a few minutes (most of them) and that are basically free.  The goal here is to keep the house cool, without unnecessary effort and for free! 

Common sense tells you to keep your blinds closed on a hot sunny day. This lowers your solar gains, as well as gives better insulation, but there's more too it than just closing them.

The problem with renewables is not the power generation, it's the energy storage.  Solar and wind generate power intermittently, sometimes when demand for the power is high and sometimes when it's not.  

Professor Donald Sadoway, an MIT professor of materials chemistry, thinks his liquid metal battery technology is the energy storage breakthrough we need.  It basically takes all the individual cells necessary for a large battery and replaces them with liquid metal, reducing cost and complexity. Lowering the cost of energy storage is necessary if a distributed network of renewable energy, such as...