Business Forward Campaign Encourages Vermont Businesses to ‘Go Big’ on Energy Efficiency

Burlington, VT

Efficiency Vermont is encouraging business customers to lead the way toward a more energy efficient Vermont.

Through Efficiency Vermont’s new campaign, “Business Forward,” businesses and commercial customers in all sizes and sectors have access to enhanced technical expertise, customer support, rebates, and incentives to encourage them to invest in energy efficiency.

“Our aim is to work with Vermont businesses and other commercial customers now through 2017 to help them realize a combined financial savings of more than $190 million over the next 13 years in energy costs,” said Liz Gamache, Director of Efficiency Vermont. “The business community has always led the way in generating energy savings for Vermont, and we’re encouraging them to partner with us to build on that investment now through Business Forward.”

Energy savings through commercial customers represents approximately two-thirds of the total electric energy efficiency savings reported by Efficiency Vermont in its most recent reporting period (2012 through 2014).  

Through Business Forward, Efficiency Vermont plans to build upon this foundation of energy savings with an investment of more than $17 million in incentives combined with project support and technical expertise. During 2017, Efficiency Vermont is seeking to partner with commercial customers to create electric energy savings large enough to:

• Power Montpelier for nine months; or
• Match the annual electricity production of a 300-acre photovoltaic solar farm; or
• Match the output of a 30 MW gas power plant operating non-stop for 13 weeks; or
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45,700 metric tons – the equivalent of taking 9,700 cars off the road for one year.

“Energy efficiency is as integral a part of Vermont’s energy system as other generation sources, such as hydro and solar power. Saved energy is clean, affordable, and locally sourced so it makes economic sense to continually expand this resource,” said Gamache. “Business Forward makes it easier and more financially attractive for businesses and commercial customers to help Vermont grow this power resource and lead the way to an even more efficient future.”

Investing in energy efficiency helps businesses like Ben & Jerry’s achieve energy savings that translate directly into lower operating costs. This helps businesses to be more competitive in the market, and even expand their operations through additional staff and improved processes. In many cases the energy efficiency measures that a business invests in can pay for themselves in a couple of years thanks to the associated energy savings and the reduced upfront costs through Efficiency Vermont incentives.

Efficiency Vermont is mobilizing resources for the Business Forward campaign to make investing in energy efficiency easier and less costly through:

• Technical support: Efficiency Vermont energy experts will increase their outreach to commercial customers across Vermont to help businesses develop project plans, evaluate possible energy savings and return on investment, and take advantage of programs and incentives.
• Incentives and rebates: Efficiency Vermont will offer more than $17 million in energy efficiency incentives and rebates to help lower the upfront cost for businesses to invest in efficiency improvements.
• Financing: Efficiency Vermont experts can help businesses access financing by running cost-savings analyses to ensure improvements will result in reduced operating costs, then identify financing solutions, such as Business Energy Loans.
• New technologies and services: Efficiency Vermont has identified technologies and services that can deliver significant savings to many businesses operations, and is pairing them with aggressive rebates – along with partnerships with suppliers, contractors, and manufacturer representatives to make the process easy and economically compelling for business customers. Some examples include:
• Building systems and renovations
• Efficient lighting
• HVAC
• Commercial refrigeration
• Industrial process.

More information about Business Forward offerings is available online at https://www.efficiencyvermont.com/business-forward.

About Efficiency Vermont

As the nation’s first Energy Efficiency Utility, Efficiency Vermont has helped Vermont avoid over 13.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and has received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence award for the last eight consecutive years. Efficiency Vermont works with partners to help our state transition to more affordable, low carbon energy use through education, incentives, and support for our clean energy workforce. Learn more at www.efficiencyvermont.com.

Efficiency Vermont Press Contact
Matthew Smith
Phone: (802) 540-7662
[email protected]