What is Energy Efficiency as a Service and How Does it Benefit Utility Providers?

In today’s fast-paced, hyper-connected world you can get almost anything you need in the form of a service. From meal planning subscriptions to professional wardrobe planners to ordering food delivery from multiple restaurants to the same place. The concept of meeting everyday needs through a third party service company has been spreading like wildfire across almost every product imaginable and, in turn, is helping organizations connect their brands and offerings to customers far and wide.

Right at home, alongside this idea, is the concept of energy efficiency as a service. According to our friends at Green Tech Media, the as-a-service model refers to a practice in which “capital intensive costs are spread out over the useful life of a product or offering.” For example, software as a service (of which common examples include Microsoft Office, Google Apps, and Salesforce) has had energy savings offerings in the form of software dashboards and reporting products for years. However, user error or poor adoption practices of software left the field open to a more ubiquitous solution.

Energy efficiency as a service is a pay-for-performance financing solution for organizations that wish to implement better energy-saving procedures with no upfront cost. Instead, there is a multitude of ways in which a provider might offer energy efficiency as a service. In one form, the service provider pays for the development, construction, and maintenance of an energy efficiency project. Once the project is operational, the company pays the service provider based on actual energy cost savings. Other models of energy efficiency as a service offering include energy subscription agreements or hiring a third-party company to manage light or HVAC energy consumption.

In many ways, EFI can be considered among the multitude of companies offering energy-saving solutions to utility companies as a service: whether that means helping get customers to adopt a broader range of offerings through the use of EFI savings kits or passing energy savings on through the management of product incentives. With new opportunities presenting themselves every day, EFI is poised to take advantage of this growing trend to help fully realize the energy and cost-saving benefits available for utility companies nationwide.

For more information on energy efficiency as a service, check out the Green Tech Media article here.