Lowering energy costs, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and putting people to work: Introducing a project that does it all

I wanted to avoid being Seattle-centric with this blog, and have been moderately successful so far. But Seattle is where I have lived and worked — and am now studying — for 25-plus years, so it is the community I know best. It doesn’t hurt that Seattle is a center for lots of progressive activity supporting conservation, legislation favoring distributed energy, and green technology research and jobs.

So, I introduce you here to the Energy Efficiency Project Development and Finance Program, which provides financing, installation and maintenance of energy saving systems in large downtown Seattle buildings. This can mean improvements to or replacement of steam distribution systems, heat substations, heat exchangers, heat recovery systems, water conservation systems and/or HVAC systems.

How it works:

• The customer has no out-of-pocket or capital costs. Program customers sign a seven-year (average) energy services agreement that allows the customer’s utility to pay for the retrofit cost from the resulting savings in energy enjoyed by the customer. Customers pay for the improvements with their 20 percent or more savings in their gas, steam, electric and water bills. 
• In most cases, the energy and dollar savings are greater than the energy services agreement payments, so customers have net cash flow savings even while paying for the retrofit. Once the agreement is completed, the customer pockets all the savings. In many cases, this means tens of thousands of dollars per year. In addition, the energy service agreement payments can be treated as operating expenses and not as capital improvement expenses.
• The partnership handles everything — financing, installation and maintenance. Once a customer signs on, the project is 100 percent managed for them.
• The program lowers project costs for customers thanks to its partners’ arrangement for utility and carbon reduction incentives through the City of Seattle.

The partners in the Energy Efficiency Project Development and Finance Program are MacDonald-Miller Facility Solutions, MacDonald-Miller Energy Capital Solutions, the Energy Efficiency Finance Corporation, and customers of the Seattle Steam Company. Other customers outside the Seattle Steam system will be on board soon.

The program has been met with great enthusiasm by many facilities managers and sustainability representatives. A contract has already been signed with the Washington Athletic Club and contracts with other large building owners are in process.

Meanwhile, The Seattle Foundation leaders are so excited about the program, they are making plans to invest $1 million as part of the capital pool arranged by the Energy Efficiency Finance Corporation to finance these projects.

No matter what the primary incentive of participants is — financial, environmental or community — everyone benefits. The program:

• Cuts customer energy costs by more than 20 percent
• Reduces carbon in the atmosphere, thereby moderating Seattle’s impact on climate change
• Creates economic activity and jobs from resources that we already have

“We make a compelling business offer to building owners that simply can’t be passed up,” said John MacLean, president of project partner Energy Efficiency Finance Corporation. “With this program, leaders of companies and organizations that own Seattle buildings can do their part for the environment and the economy, and save money and improve their facilities at the same time. We want to accelerate and create a culture of energy efficiency investment in Seattle. This is a scalable model that is likely to gain considerable national attention and be adapted by communities nationwide.”