John Avina
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John Avina, President of Abraxas Energy Consulting, has worked in energy analysis and utility bill tracking almost 15 years. During his tenure at Thermal Energy Applications Research Center, Johnson Controls, SRC Systems, Silicon Energy and Abraxas Energy Consulting, Mr. Avina has managed the M&V for a large performance contractor, managed software development for energy analysis applications, created energy analysis software that is commercially for sale, taught over 200 energy management classes, created hundreds of building models and utility bill tracking databases, modeled hundreds of utility rates, performed numerous commercial energy audits and set up and maintained M&V projects for a handful of 500 to 1000 unit big box store chains. Mr. Avina has a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE), the American Solar Energy Society (ASES), and a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) and Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP).
Recent Activity
Every year energy managers need to report how much energy they saved and whether or not they met their energy savings targets. Most energy managers present reports comparing their current year's usage to energy usage from a previous year. Savings targets are typically a percentage of that previous year's usage. Setting targets and comparing in this manner usually does not generate an accurate estimate of energy actually saved...
One of the benefits of saving energy is that we are at the same time increasing our air quality, and many believe that we may be putting off global warming at the same time. I always wanted to quantify the reduction in emissions associated with the reduction in energy use. It would make the customer and I feel a little better about our jobs. But, as we were always busy putting out fires here and there, I never got a chance...
There are a few problems that work against you when trying to find a company to perform a good energy audit for you: 1) Everybody and their brother now claims to do energy audits, and 2) Nobody quite agrees on exactly what an energy audit is. In this paper, I am going to cover these problems and then tell you how to select a quality energy auditor and not get ripped off.
Utility bill tracking is at the heart of an effective energy management program. Merely comparing utility bills can yield inaccurate indications of the amount of savings from energy management programs due to the unaccounted influence of weather or other factors...
After installing energy conservation measures (ECMs), Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) often determine the energy savings resulting from the project and present the savings results to their customers. A common way to calculate energy savings is to measure the flows of energy associated with the ECM, and then to apply spreadsheet calculations to determine savings...
Today's utility bill tracking software can deliver excellent results for energy managers who want to gain a comprehensive understanding of utility usage and costs in their facilities. All of the major commercially available utility bill tracking software programs are good at what they do, however, they are distinctly different in functionality and capacity.
Utility Bill Tracking systems are at the center of an effective energy management program. However, some organizations spend time and money putting together a utility bill tracking system and never reap any value. This paper presents three utility bill analysis techniques which energy managers can use to arrive at sound energy management decisions and achieve cost savings.
