VO: You are listening to Cool Air Hot Takes.
Charles Jelen: Hello and welcome to Cool Air Hot Takes the podcast where we're bringing you opinions, insights, and headlines from all over the energy sector and the built environment. We're your hosts. I'm Charlie. This picture of Health next to me is Dan
Dan Gentry: Gentry. We are very happy to have you with us episode six. Well, can you believe it?
We've loved it. We've loved it so much that we're coming back for a season two in a few weeks with more hot takes, more headlines and more industry experts.
Charles Jelen: And thank you guys so much listener out there. The only reason we're coming back for season two is we've gotten your feedback. You've emailed the show, you've downloaded the shows, uh, and so we very much appreciate you guys coming along with the journey with us.
Dan Gentry: Remember, we'd love to hear from you. You can leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. You can also leave a review on Apple, and of course, we love hearing from you via email@coolair.hot takes@train.com. We're after suggestions. We're after comments. Of course, we love Hot Takes. Or maybe just a little, uh, hello.
Let us know you're out there and listening. It's nice to hear. That is nice to hear. Alright,
Charles Jelen: so listener, my hot take for this week is we have a number one fan. Are we gonna get him like a crown or something? Shit. And his name is Deek Mater. He is hailing from La Crescent, Minnesota. Very active comments on every episode, has great feedback, day of decent hot takes of his own.
But Mr. Mater, for your continued support, we are going to get you a shirt. Cool. Air Hot takes shirt. A hat and a sticker. Ooh. So thank you very much.
Dan Gentry: Look at that getting merch. Yes, he is. He's gonna love it. Yeah, absolutely. So that was my hot takes. Thanks. We got number one fan. Thanks. Well, thank you Mr.
Deeds. How about you? So my hot take is a validation on a previous hot take. So you talked about draining hot water heaters. Yes, I did a while back, hot water heater maintenance, very easy once a year and you weren't wrong. So, uh, no. Several weeks ago I had an element go out in my hot water heater. So call my buddy Josh at the GR Plumbing great guy.
And, um, comes over, we're just gonna change it on the fly. Pulled the old one out, bunch of, you know, water and, uh, sediments and all that kind of stuff, came out and threw the new one in. I'm like, what's up with all that stuff? He's like, yeah, yeah, you really want to drain these. And get that sediment out of there and, you know, your hot water heater's gonna last a lot longer.
So I'm like, yeah, okay. Well, yeah, I, I really need to do that. So I get the new element in probably. Two, three weeks later, I've got no hot water, so call my buddy Josh. You know what's going on. He is like, ah, you know, I think that element might've went, you had a lot of sediment in there and you know that that builds up and it probably cooked that.
So sure enough, I did then go drain the hot water heater and loads of sediment do it. We're, uh, coming out of the hot water heater and uh, yeah, hot water heater. Maintenance is a serious thing, listener. So drain your hot water heater. Preventative maintenance. Just do it.
Charles Jelen: I, I cannot believe that you did do it.
Literally, you sat here, heard the hot take, didn't do it, and then had to pay for it.
Dan Gentry: I, I'm pretty sure at the time I said like, yeah, you know, I, I'm gonna do that. I. So I, I, I eventually did do it. So, um, hey, you know, that is a, it's a, it's a hot take squared. All we gotta
Charles Jelen: move past that. That's good. We have one more hot take though.
We have a listener hot take. If you wanna get in on the show, if you think you've got a hot take and you think you might wanna be featured, email cool air.hot takes@train.com. Uh, Brett Larson is an investor out in Denver, Colorado. And he said, buildings with 30 plus year old chillers should be required by law to paint their exterior walls pink as a form of public shaming until they replace it.
And what he's getting at is that chillers improve their efficiency decade over decade. We come out with new technology, they get way more efficient that after 30 years is, is pretty easy to replace it and get the financial reward from that just based on efficiency. So that's what he was saying is, um.
There needs to be some kind of mechanism to get people to do it, and
Dan Gentry: I like it. Public shaming. I thought it was good. Yeah, and everybody loves a little public shaming and you know, pink buildings, pink wells. That doesn't hurt anybody. Oh, I like it. I like it. Alright, Dan, what do we got lined up today?
Alright. Right on the docket today we're gonna have the latest from the HVAC related news in our HVAC headline segment. After that, we have Adam Scarcella. He's our special guest this week. He is the director of sales at volti, which is a demand energy response aggregator. Stay tuned. It's gonna be a good one, and of course we will be wrapping it up with your stat of the day.
But first, let's get to your HVAC headlines,
Adam Scarsella: HBAC. Headlines your news today.
Charles Jelen: Alright, listener, it's six o'clock in Belfast. Here's your headlines. All right. Headline number one. This came from Diary 24, and I couldn't go past it because a tag on it was awesome. The largest project in history is underway. A new continent will emerge from the sea. Tell me you're not reading that headline.
Carry on. Developers are proceeding with plans to construct two energy islands in the north and the Baltic seas. These islands will serve as foundation for an integrated European offshore electrical infrastructure connecting nearby offshore wind farms with onshore power markets. So essentially what this is, is.
Europe, especially in that part of Europe. So this is stretching from like Britain over to like the Nordic countries and through there they are doing a ton of offshore wind, big wind farms, and it's all out in the sea. And they're gonna connect all of these through manmade islands and then have common points of connections to utility grids on land.
And apparently these things are gonna be massive, like the size of small islands.
Dan Gentry: Yeah, that's wild. So first thing I thought of and I had to type in just to see some pictures is I'm pretty sure the North and Baltic seas see pretty like rough seas thinking like deadliest catch and all that kinda stuff.
And so I like Googled up here to North Shore Storm or what, Baltic sea storms. How are these things gonna, like, I don't think the Edmund Fitzgerald popped up, did it? No. No. It's, she's at the bottom of superior still. But that's, uh. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. I mean, it seems like a feat of human engineering.
Yeah.
Charles Jelen: And maybe they, friend of the show, Trevor Jolson, his favorite form of renewable energy generation is actually tidal power.
Dan Gentry: Oh, okay. And
Charles Jelen: so maybe these islands will capture some of that. I
Dan Gentry: mean, it's super cool. There's gotta be a. Ton of energy available as long as they can withstand the storms. I, I can't get over the, the waves and the
Charles Jelen: storms.
Alright, well, so the original plan for these, or the, the tentative plan for these is they're gonna have three gigawatts of power coming on shore with a build out up to 10 gigawatts. Lot of power. Three gigawatts is like 5 million homes. So it's, it's, it's really, really big in terms of the amount of power that they're gonna try to pull off of offshore wind through these energy hubs, and then connect it into grids.
It's interesting because this is the first time they're doing these kind of energy hubs and. You think about in, in the states in Canada, where, where they've got big population next to sea, where they're thinking about doing offshore wind. So New York, Boston, and almost every big city on the west coast, if they start to adopt this, this kind of energy island could be a thing of the future.
Dan Gentry: Good headline.
Charles Jelen: I like it. What's next? Headline number two, could air conditioners be key to crime solving?
Uh, this one came from cooling post. So a forensic team in Australia has successfully conducted tests that can accurately show human DNA of people that were present in a room over time. So they're able to take samples from both indoor units, furnaces, and filters, and then they can tell you
Dan Gentry: who was in the room.
It feels very, uh, CS I ish. Yeah. I used to watch a lot of CSI back in the day and made me think about that. Also, my wife and I, when we're road tripping mm-hmm. Do a lot of murder mystery podcasts. I can't wait to listen to one of those podcasts that was solved by an HVAC system. Right.
Charles Jelen: I mean, that's
Dan Gentry: wild.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. Yeah. We're probably not that far away from being able to. Have the BAS system tell you who's in the room at any given point in time change. I mean, it makes sense. Yeah.
Dan Gentry: With all the crazy stuff we can measure and collect today. I'm not surprised by this at all. It is kind of crazy. But the other thing that I'm questioning too is like where the sensors and how are they collecting it and Well,
Charles Jelen: and if you have all of, if you have all that, like you probably have a video,
Dan Gentry: cut 'em on the nanny cam, but we got the furnace filter.
Charles Jelen: No, that wasn't me. Well, then you need the
Dan Gentry: DNA evidence. Maybe it's the second form of, uh, you know, it's the, it's the smoking. It's a tight case, you know, just helping the district attorneys out, I guess.
Charles Jelen: All right, up next we've got Adam Scarsella. He's the director of sales at Volti. Don't go anyway.
Hey, Charlie, where do you get all your information? Well, uh, mostly Grandma Diane's 1984 hardcover encyclopedias. Oh, and, uh, engineers,
Dan Gentry: newsletters. Ah, yes, that's what we're talking about. Engineers, newsletters. Listeners, let me introduce you to the ultimate resource for HVAC. Engineers, engineers, newsletters offer self-paced learning on topics like acoustics, water piping, ashray standards, and sustainable systems.
You
Charles Jelen: got it. They also have in-depth 60 Minute Engineers newsletter live videos, which are available on demand. And the best part of all this, it's all free. Sounds awesome. How do I get in on this? Just join the over 40,000 professionals who already rely on engineers newsletters. Subscribe now at tra.com/ian and now back to the show.
All right, listener. We have a very special guest today. Welcome to the show, Adam Scarsella. How you doing Adam?
Adam Scarsella: I am doing very well, longtime listener, first time caller. Thank you for having me. I.
Charles Jelen: I love it. I love it. Pleasure. So we've got a little background, Anya, to introduce you to the listener here. So Adam is an avid Louisville Cardinal alum.
He is a huge basketball fan. He is one heck of a pickle baller with a backhand that was described as wicked. He is a father of four. He does the New York Times crossword puzzle every night with his wife, which is very cute, and he's generally a great guy. Adam Scarsella, welcome to Cool Air Hot Takes.
Adam Scarsella: Thank you. Thank you. That is one heck of an intro. So,
Charles Jelen: so when I reached out to get a little personal background, number one, number two, Cardinal fan pickle baller. Are you prolific Pickle baller here? Like what? What are we working with?
Adam Scarsella: I will say right now, like it's okay. It's okay. I'm actually. Putting a pickleball court in my backyard as some slow, it'll be ready in like three weeks.
That's the next level. Yeah, exactly.
Charles Jelen: Alright. Name of the show. Cool Air Hot Takes. Adam, we ask all of our guests that come on to bring a hot take with them. It could be in personal life, in your work. What do you got for us today?
Adam Scarsella: I got two because it's hot takes and not hot takes. So, right. I've got a little personal one for you and a a bit of a professional one.
So the first one I'll throw out there is that, uh, shortly after this podcast airs, I believe the Oklahoma City Thunder. I. Will be the NBA Champs dethroning. The Celtics in five, so
Charles Jelen: I like it in five. I'm gonna try calling in five. Yeah. Wow. Oh
Adam Scarsella: yeah. Easy gentleman. Sweet. I'm speaking it into the universe.
Putting that good juju out there. So that's number one. The other hot take is that in the next five years, 75% of commercial and retail facilities. That have smart building systems or smart building controls will be participating in some form of demand response.
Charles Jelen: That's pretty cool. I like it. Wow. Good take.
I think your second hot take's a little hotter than your first hot take.
Adam Scarsella: That's, that's fair. I mean, when you're the number one team in the league, it's like, so it's that hot of a take. Best
Charles Jelen: defense ever. Yeah. All right. Well that's really good. That's a great lead into. Your work with Volti. So why don't you give us a little background.
What is Volti and what do you do for Volti?
Adam Scarsella: Yeah, so Volti, uh, you guys like buzzwords. I mean, there's people out there playing bingo. So throw it out there, buzz 'em
Dan Gentry: up.
Adam Scarsella: Let's, let's buzz this up. We take DERs and we make VPPs. That's gotta be one of the hottest buzzwords out there. And so what on earth does that mean?
So we work with commercial industrial. Data center, whatever it is, anybody that has any kind of flexibility in their load, we work with them to get them connected to programs offered by the electric grid, known as demand response. And basically I've got one of the greatest jobs out there for sales in that we get to pay our customers for working with us because these utilities, these grid operators, they have a need for flexibility.
I. And curtailment from these customers and for signing up into these programs for participating shedding load to help support the grid, they get paid. Mm-hmm. So.
Charles Jelen: When you talk about load flexibility, give us a little bit for the listener out there. When I think of flexibility in a building load, it's just being able to shift or when you use power.
Adam Scarsella: Oh yeah. I mean it can be as simple as that, but it can go past that. I said DERs, so like demand response inherently is a. DER distributed energy resource for those listening. Like why does this guy keep saying that? Well, you pass that. You've got your smart thermostats, everybody's putting in there. You've got batteries that are becoming more and more prevalent.
You've got onsite generation that people can use. So it could be any of those. It could be switching your building load to onsite generation via battery or traditional generator. It could be as simple as you raise your temperature set point in your condition space by two degrees for two hours.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. So if you raise your thermostat up and it's, let's say it's the cooling season, and so it's warm outside and you're trying to cool all your spaces, if you raise your temperature set point up, what that means is your air conditioning isn't running as much, and so it takes a load off of your building.
And so that's what you're talking about when you say flexible? Yeah. It's being able to move those loads around or just not use as much energy as you otherwise would've.
Adam Scarsella: Exactly. And in many of these programs, some of them, there are all kinds of options throughout North America. We work in nine different markets.
Some programs, you get 10 minute notice and these curtailment events last for 20 minutes at a time, you could turn the system off, you could shed some non-critical lighting very easily. Others you might get six to eight hours day ahead. Notice pre-cool the facility a little bit, shed a lot more load after.
So we work with these customers, we help them develop these strategies. And then all reality wise, set in my hot take, like those that have the smart building controls, half of our seven gigawatt portfolio right now is. Automated response, so people connecting to our API, we send them a signal and they've got a preset script that will run and raise their temperature set point.
Nobody has to lift a finger. You don't have the chief engineer in a building running around and turning off chillers.
Charles Jelen: Right. Before we dive into the programs, one thing I want you to explain to us is why is demand response a thing? What is it fundamentally solving in the industry that we would otherwise be doing without it?
Adam Scarsella: So it really comes down to supply and demand. I. As most things economic does. So what it is is a way for these grid operators to have resources that are needed in the most extreme of situations, maybe 1% less than 1% of the year that can act like a true generator, but in a much cleaner way. We're actually getting people to reduce their electricity consumption to help.
Lower the demand, therefore increasing the supply versus them having to go build a peaking power plant or another gas generator somewhere that might only ever turn on a couple hours a year. And having to maintain the permits associated with it, have somebody there to inspect it, the routine maintenance, the amount of costs just add up to the grid and to the utility for the amount of hours.
It's actually much cheaper to incentivize users to actually just reduce their electricity consumption instead.
Charles Jelen: So since you're monetizing this for owners and their flexibility to do something with their building, it's more advantageous in terms of the financial side of this to reduce people's load rather than run a peaking power plant.
And that's the market that you're playing in. So can you, just to put a point on this one, let's say it's middle of summer, it's getting really hot outside people's air conditioning's coming on. We're using energy, we're using electricity in buildings. And the load on the grid is increasing. The operator has two choices.
One would be bring on peak power plants or send a signal to Volti or to whoever to provide negative to reduce the amount of energy that's on the grid. Is that kind of how that works?
Adam Scarsella: Yeah.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. Okay. And then talk us through those programs that you were going through. 'cause it sounded like there were 10 minute, 20 minute, hour ahead, 24 hour.
Like what are the increments that you guys work with clients on?
Adam Scarsella: It's really anywhere from 10 minutes all the way up to a couple of days notice. Okay. And it really depends on the market. We're working in nine different markets and the way we bucket. The types of demand response are ancillary services.
These are going to be quick 10 minute response. We tend to see this a lot in the Midwest where there's actually a large amount of generation happens to be wind. These operators have to. Predict when the wind is gonna blow. Dunno about you. But I don't know how the heck to do that. I don't. As great as they are, they do make mistakes.
So sometimes when there's not enough wind or it hasn't picked up nearly as much as they were expecting, they will call on our aggregation of resources, our virtual power plant to shed load while they actually work on bringing on. Say a natural gas generator. So ancillary service programs tend to be kind of a bridge between a lack of generation and bringing on a longer use generation resource.
Shifting from that, you get into capacity based or emergency based demand response, and these are your kind of what everybody tends to know for demand response. Your blackout prevention. I think everybody remembers Winter Storm Yuri four years ago in Texas, and hearing about how their Ercot grid failed.
Well, demand response was called upon in that timeframe as well to try and help prevent the blackouts that occurred, you know, the largest electric grid in the world. PJMI. It has a longstanding program. And you know what's really interesting is we're seeing these programs make a resurgence of late with the, just the rise we're seeing in capacity costs.
I'm sure you've heard or seen, yeah. TJM. Miso have had some of the highest capacity clearing prices in their auctions here in the last 12 months. Really what's driving that is generation being retired, load increasing as people electrify. Renewables being much more of the generation makeup, and what it is, is a signal that we need more demand response resources.
Our customers that are in these programs are now making more money because. Of these increased capacity charges, which they're going to see anyways on their electricity bills. So it's a great way for them to offset those increased costs and also support the grid helping to prevent blackouts should there be a need.
I.
Charles Jelen: On those wholesale markets. Back to kind of the supply demand that you were talking about, is that the crux of those problems where we see in miso, in PJM, you know, you see the headlines around skyrocketing capacity costs. Is that the build out of ai, the build out of electrification, ev uh, electrification of heat and buildings, and then coal plants coming offline, nuke plants coming offline?
Is that the imbalance that drives that market up?
Adam Scarsella: That's exactly it. And really, I think we're only at the tip of the iceberg here because, I mean, I'm sure you all are involved in the conversations, but we're having conversations constantly in the AI space and about everybody. Mm-hmm. Looking for hundreds of megawatts of load that just don't exist out there.
Most of the time. So I think in all reality we're gonna continue to see these capacity costs just increase, stay increased. And as we bring on more and more of this AI load,
Dan Gentry: do like a data center, AI customers, you know, critical places like hospitals and that kind of stuff, can they leverage these programs?
Adam Scarsella: Absolutely. I mean, anybody that has flexibility can be a part of these programs. It just kind of comes down to. How they implement curtailment. You know, hospitals tend to be a little bit tough. Historically, they would participate with a backup generator, typically a diesel generator. So with EPA regulations can't really use those anymore with rice niche apps.
But they still, many of them are putting in centralized chiller plants. They are putting in smart controls. So you do have an opportunity there with the HVAC system.
Charles Jelen: Yeah, this space is interesting. So can you give us an idea, right. You work on the enterprise side, which I'm assuming means like national accounts or exactly larger footprints.
Can you give us an idea of one of your clients and how they're participating in demand response and what clients could expect to get out of a demand response program?
Adam Scarsella: Yeah, so I've got a client out there who has facilities all throughout North America, and they've been working with us for many years trying to.
Offset their increasing capacity charges. So another type of program, we didn't talk about demand management or peak shaving, if you will. Mm-hmm. So in PJM, where we said pricing has skyrocketed, uh, it's gone up, I believe, like nine x in most regions here in the last year. People are about to see that hit their electricity bills starting June 1st.
So they've got literally one month before they start to see that increase on their bills. This customer. Being as proactive as they are, utilizes our predictive analysis to know when these peaks might occur. We have this API integration, so we send the signal their facilities know to implement the pre-scheduled script.
So increase temperature by a couple of degrees, maybe reduce some non-critical lighting. I mean, it's middle of the day. You get some light from the exterior, and because of that, they're able to actually curtail about 20 ish megawatts of load across PJM, which spans from Chicago to the eastern seaboard.
And because of that, they're actually going to avoid over $3 million of demand charges on their electricity bills starting June 1st. So yeah, I think it'll be pretty eye-opening for people. Come June 1st in both Miso, which is Midwest, if you will, and PJM come June 1st.
Charles Jelen: Yeah. Talk about the future. I know PJM was about a year ago.
Miso just came out here in the last month. Mm-hmm. But do you expect to see this shift to all wholesale markets at some point in time? Like is it unavoidable?
Adam Scarsella: I do think so. I mean, with the electrification, the data center load, the retirement of, I. You know, coal nuke out there. Mm-hmm. I do think we are going to continue to see this trend of higher capacity costs throughout North America, so wouldn't be surprised to see just overall electricity costs for individuals increasing here in the next few years.
Charles Jelen: So if listeners out there, they're in charge of a building, they're a building manager, or they own a building, or even an engineer working out a building, what are like the telltale signs of, yeah. Okay. I think I, I should look into demand response for my building. Like are there some things that are obvious to them?
I. Or should be obvious.
Adam Scarsella: Yeah, I mean, if you've got like say a battery that can carry the facility load for a few hours and you're basically doing nothing with it, I find that very hard to believe would be a situation that exists. But that right there would be the most obvious in my opinion. But past that, I think it comes down to like, okay, what is the space you are in?
You know, the past post covid. We have seen some return back to office buildings, but obviously still mm-hmm. A big shift to the remote work environment. So do you have certain days where you don't have nearly as much tenants in the building? Do you just naturally have fewer tenants than you previously did?
Do you have that control system in place where you could implement a script or work with somebody to get a pre-scheduled script that can make you really the easy button? Those are the things I would look at. Do you have excess capacity in the refrigeration systems? Do you have excess rooftop units? I mean, will anyone notice if you raise the temperature set point by a couple of degrees?
Charles Jelen: Is there areas, parts of the country? You said you operate in different markets. Are there certain markets that are more lucrative than others? Are there ideal markets where people should be looking at this more so than others?
Adam Scarsella: I mean, if you've, if you've got the flexibility, you should be looking at it no matter where you are.
But as mentioned, like really the three areas where you do tend to see the best makeup of programs and return on investment. It's gonna be PJM with the increased capacity costs, your, you know, demand response kind of places a hedge to increase electricity costs. Helps you offset that a little bit.
Charles Jelen: How does the client get started?
What do they do? Is there things that they need to do upfront or do they just reach out? How does that work?
Adam Scarsella: Reach out to us. We've got a very robust sales team. We've got a, some of the best, I mean, we've got the best, I'll say it. Hot takes. We've got the best energy markets, team engineering team. The best team in general, don't wanna leave anybody out, but I'd say reach out to somebody on our sales team.
And what we do is we get a better understanding of how much electricity you are using and what the processes are that you have on site, what your flexibility is. And from that, we actually put together a financial analysis to say, Hey, is this going to be worth it? You are wild. That make sense In demand response.
Exactly. I mean, hey, we might be able to deliver $20,000 for two and a half hours of curtailment over the course of the year. Does that make sense to you? No. Okay, great. What would make sense, and if it doesn't make sense, we move on. Maybe it's a hundred thousand dollars for one hour of reduced electricity usage.
So we understand that we provide the value proposition, and then from there we've got a really simple agreement. We install real time electricity monitoring equipment for these customers, so they actually get incredible visibility into what their facility is doing and the benefits of demand response.
Dan Gentry: Nice. So if your building has some flexibility and you wanna save some money, give you a call.
Charles Jelen: Absolutely. I'm always available. All right. Last, last one before we wrap it. Yes sir. You got a magic wand. What do you do to make demand response supercharged in North America? That's a
Adam Scarsella: fantastic question.
Charles Jelen: Thank you.
I try.
Adam Scarsella: Exactly, exactly. You know, it's funny, I had a sales leader at one point 'cause I would, you know, typical sales senior, like, hey, great question. He's like, are you ever gonna tell someone? That's a stupid question. That's a good point. So I, I try not to give kudos to people on their question asking anymore.
But that was a good one, Charlie. So over. The US energy sector. We've got the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee and ferc and ferc ferc. So many years ago, the exact order escapes me, but they allowed states to opt out of allowing demand response. And here in the last couple of years, a new order, 2222. For two by four, whatever you wanna call it, came out and was going to do away with that.
And I, if I had the magic wand, make it instantaneous, no more state opt-outs of allowing demand response. You two are in Wisconsin right now. Wisconsin here, while is evaluating. Or reevaluating their state optout as we speak. But for the first time this year, we were able to bring forth megawatts to help support the grid in Wisconsin, a grid that just had sky high capacity charges in a recent auction.
Mm-hmm. So I think if I had that magic wand, that's exactly what I would do after that I, your lottery representative
Dan Gentry: And ask them for DER. Exactly. Or vpa. Or VPPs,
Charles Jelen: VPPs. VPs. Alright, Adam, thank you for coming on the show. It was a great conversation and uh, hey, uh, best of luck in the word puzzle tonight.
Adam Scarsella: Ah, thank you.
I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for having me. It's been fun. Keep up the great work. Get to Sta of the day.
Dan Gentry: Up next instead of the day. Instead of
Adam Scarsella: the day.
Dan Gentry: Dano, what's your, uh, favorite destination for a conference? Oh, you know, I love that hot heat, so I have to
Charles Jelen: say Arizona. Well, you're in luck. The 2025 ASHRAE annual conference is happening in Phoenix, Arizona from June 21st to the 25th. Really? Tell me more. Well, train's gonna be presenting a tech talk on hydronic branch conductors.
Dan Gentry: Ah yeah, listener. The hydronic branch conductor is a game changer. Come check it out at the ASHRAE conference. June 21st to the 25th and now back to the show. Alright, it's that time of the day Again. Time for stat of the day. Here comes Joe.
Charles Jelen: Stat of the Day. Of the Day.
Dan Gentry: Stat of the Day. Charlie, what have we got for a stat today?
Charles Jelen: All right, listener. The stat of the day comes from the visual capitalist. Today, and the chart that we're pulling off of is called the decline of the Remote work by Industry. And so they brought together stats for different industries across the US and we're gonna look at what percentage of people were mostly working in office.
So in 2023, the average was 34% of people worked in office. Then in 2024, it went up to 68%, so a 34% increase. Overall, the number one industry that had the biggest change was consumer and retail was at 33% in 2023 for working in office up to 87%. That is a very confusing one. I do not know how that many people in retail worked at home.
Dan Gentry: Yeah, we might need some listeners to give us a couple notes on this one and send in the cool air to hot takes@train.com and let us know. 'cause I don't understand how that seems like a, a pretty big number when I'm imagining most of it is interacting with customers and people. Yeah. You think so?
Charles Jelen: But I mean, like, there's a lot of virtual stuff, obviously.
Yeah. That picked up. But still, I think the amount that came back was pretty indicative of. They need to be 87% or where people are the most successful in retail is probably face to face. 54% increase though from 23 to 24. Geez. The next one, 40% increase for pharmaceutical and medical products. So I could, I, I could see the remote
Dan Gentry: work aspect of that, I think.
Charles Jelen: Well, and it
Dan Gentry: was. '
Charles Jelen: cause of Covid,
Dan Gentry: but that's a big increase. That's,
Charles Jelen: yeah, 40%. Next one, healthcare systems and services. Again, that makes sense. 35 to 73%. Yeah. Public sector, 32 to 68%.
Dan Gentry: I feel like something else is, something's going on there too.
Charles Jelen: What do you think's going
Dan Gentry: on there? Well, I think a lot of 'em are told to come back to work.
Well.
Charles Jelen: That number might shift a little bit more in 2025. And then the last one on the list here, advanced industries, so this would be like trained technologies. The average 42% of people worked in office in 2023 up to 73%. So 31% increase.
Dan Gentry: And that makes sense. Even looking back two, three years ago, like I was just saying, I was at the office the other day and one of our parking lots, there was like.
Four spaces left. Yeah, like the buildings are definitely filling up, so like that makes sense. That seems to track even just with what I see on the campus every day. Very interesting. Mm-hmm. Good work. As always. Love this day of the day.
Charles Jelen: And that is a wrap for episode six. Thanks for listening to this episode of Cool Air Hot Takes.
Thanks so much to Adam Scarsella for joining us from Volti. That was a great interview. Learned a lot about Dr. And VPPs. A special thanks to Bailey, Keaton and Ainsley daily. There's some new members of the team that are helping us a ton in the background. The show would not be the same without you, so thank you very much.
Just a heads up. We're gonna take a bit of a break between season one and season two, so we'll see you back for more episodes in a couple of weeks.
Dan Gentry: But we still want to hear from you. You can leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Leave us a review on Apple. Drop us a message@coolair.hot takes@trane.com.
We want to hear your questions. We would love to hear your hot takes. Send us all the headlines you can. We'd love to hear your funny stories. If you got any disagreements, shoot those our way as well. Don't forget to leave us a rating wherever you listen. Five stars, only please, very please. Until next time, stay cool and keep those takes hot.
Charles Jelen: Is it hot or cold?
