Seattle City Light and the Bullitt Foundation are trying to create a new business model for financing deep energy efficiency improvements. They are working to create a contract that would quantify energy savings relative to standard commercial buildings and pay for them as utility energy purchases. A pilot project to begin later this year will focus on the Bullitt Center, a new commercial office building that showcases the latest in sustainable and efficient designs, technologies, operations, and business models.
This effort could address flaws in the model for financing deep energy efficiency improvements and “has the potential to be enormously important,” says Denis Hayes, Bullitt Foundation president and CEO.
Buildings account for about 74 percent of U.S. electricity consumption and a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Read the full story: Benjamin Romano, Xconomy, June 12, 2013.