This blog post was written by guest blogger Matt Golden, Senior Energy Finance Consultant.
Source: City-Data.com
The EDF Investor Confidence Project (ICP) is a multi-year initiative to help spur growth in the commercial energy efficiency retrofit market by reducing transaction costs and engineering overhead, and increasing the reliability and consistency of savings. EDF has worked with a cross-functional team of industry experts to assemble existing technical standards and best practices into a straightforward Energy Performance Protocol (EPP) that defines a standard investment quality energy efficiency project to enable deal-flow and investment.
In November of 2012, we released the initial version of the Energy Performance Protocol for Large Commercial (EPP-LC). We received encouraging reviews from industry allies and many industry leaders have committed to join our growing ICP Ally program, a broad based network of organizations that helps us develop, test, and implement the ICP Protocols.
New Release: Large Commercial – Version 1.1
Building on our initial success and market feedback, ICP is now releasing a new and updated version 1.1 of the EPP-LC, which incorporates a wide array of important improvements that will streamline the project development process and improve results.
Our ICP team is incredibly grateful to all individuals that contributed their time and energy to this process resulting in a more streamlined protocol, especially our committed team of experts who dedicated untold hours and contributed a wide array of industry, research, and public sector experience.
Upcoming Standard Commercial and Multifamily Protocols
In an effort to increase efficiency across the range of projects in the market, we have focused our attention on delivering protocols for both Standard Commercial (projects that typically cost under $1MM) and Multifamily projects. Combined with our existing protocols, this combination will enable us to serve the majority of the energy efficiency market.
We are also working with a range of public programs focused on driving demand and overcoming barriers, such as Commercial PACE, On-Bill Repayment, and Benchmarking Programs. ICP plays a key role connecting these programs to the wide array of investors needed to achieve our energy efficiency goals.
The protocols are designed to add value to the various participants in the energy efficiency ecosystem. Project developers benefit from better access to capital resources, standardized origination processes, and the ability to benchmark projects. Building owners and managers will see a more competitive bidding process and get better rates and terms for their projects. Investors will be able to underwrite deals more efficiently by having reduced transaction costs and consistent yields. Once consistent protocols are adopted, the entire industry will benefit from smaller transaction costs, more consistent project performance, and increased access to capital.
If you are interested in learning more, or getting involved, visit our ICP website for more details and to sign up for our Ally program, or contact us about implementing the ICP Energy Performance Protocols.
One Comment
How many of these large commercial buildings have a chimney poking out of their roof? Leaving most of those chimneys is a lot of Hot Wasted Natural Gas Energy. This energy can be recovered with the technology of Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery, and then this recovered heat can still be used as building space heating or be used to heat domestic water. At a hotel this recovered energy can be used to heat the swimming pools.
Increased natural gas energy efficiency = Reduced utility bills = Profit
Increased natural gas energy efficiency = Reduced global warming
Increased natural gas energy efficiency = Reduced CO2 emissions
Increased natural gas energy efficiency = Water conservation.
The US DOE states that for every 1 million Btu’s of heat energy recovered from these waste exhaust gases, and this recovered heat energy is utilized back in the building or facility, 117 lbs of CO2 will not be put into the atmosphere.