Editorial: Measuring Matters Perhaps the greatest challenge to
promoting energy efficiency is that you can’t see it. People
understand electricity produced from a PV collector on the roof,
and a kWh meter can easily report precisely how much energy was
generated. But with more-efficient products, savings cannot be
directly measured; instead, one must reckon the difference
between a real and a hypothetical situation. This complexity
creates a lingering uncertainty whether the promised savings did
or did not actually occur. There’s another paradox related to
the evaluation of energy savings. Conscientious program managers
and energy professionals should want to collect energy
consumption data and perform the necessary analysis to be sure
that the technology worked as expected. After all, how can one
learn from mistakes if the mistakes aren’t observed? But the
world works differently. If the preliminary estimates are proven
correct, then program managers are open to criticism for wasting
money on needless and ex