The difficulty that most energy efficiency projects encounter is the typical large upfront cost. A full home energy efficiency retrofit project would include lighting, HVAC, insulation, windows, appliances and replacement of other energy consuming devices. For a small home you would very quickly get your costs into the five figure range and large homes could potentially get into the six figures. Energy efficient retrofits of commercial locations could far exceed the numbers of residential projects. For the average consumer these costs are prohibitive and are what is holding this country back from efficiency. The easiest way that the government could help facilitate these improvements would be to incentive consumers to make these choices. It could either be through tax incentives or through the funding of rebate programs. The government could really help the efficiency movement by reducing the upfront cost for consumers. These incentives could also apply to new construction, not just retrofit of existing buildings. An additional way that government involvement could facilitate efficiency would have to take place on a local government level. Local government could implement building code that required energy efficiency in construction.

I would like to discuss my current business (without giving away any secrets) when I comes to developing a business that moves this idea forward. We are a registered participant in a utility’s lighting efficiency program. The way this program works is that the utility gives a flat rate rebate for each LED light that a customer purchases. To ramp up our sales and to make the efficiency upgrade process easier for customers we have rolled out a program that takes the paperwork out of customers hands and removes any hassle. It also significantly reduces their upfront cost for lighting upgrades. The way our program works is that we file the rebate paperwork for the customer, we have the rebate check sent directly to us and we discount the customer invoice by the amount of the rebate they were set to receive. This give the customer the benefits of not dealing with the filing of the rebate paperwork, significant cost reduction and a much shorted payback period for their upgrade. It give us the benefits of easier sales and happier customers. If there were government programs functioning the same way as these utility programs, a company that positioned itself as a subject matter expert concerning the program could really carve out a niche for itself and build a strong loyal customer following.