Rants and Rays - Key Pillars of Energy Management

My personal belief is that there are three main pillars to comprehensive Energy Management as a big component of the solution to Global Warming:

1. Efficiency - "Waste Less" energy
2. Generation - "Make More" clean energy
3. Conservation - "Use Less" energy

Efficiency and Generation are more system/infrastructure changes. These require capital investments, but I believe they are are more easily achievable, since they are just changes to the equipment. For example, you can save electricity by sealing the air leaks in windows with caulking or right-sizing the HVAC unit. You can generate clean energy by adding solar panels.

Unlike the other two pillars, Conservation is dependent almost exclusively on behavioral changes, and thus is very difficult to implement and achieve. However, if our behavior can be changed, the impact and benefit is likely to be much more impactful and longer lasting.

Efficiency and Conservation are generally espoused to the end-user side while Generation is more of a utility priority. However, I believe that with solar the Generation pillar can and will be an important component in the future for the end-user. Per above, the results of Generation are more easily achievable since they are reliant almost entirely on purchase of equipment rather than a change in behavior.