If you have wanted to implement an energy retrofit for your commercial facility but have been stymied by complexities and funding, your solution may be BOMA’s updated performance contracting model.
The BOMA Energy Performance Contracting Model (BEPC) has been streamlined to help private building owners implement energy efficiency projects. Although performance contracting has been used largely in the public sector for decades, BEPC facilitates its use in the private sector, where it retains the key benefit of using future energy and operations savings to finance retrofits. The updated model also provides more flexibility for building owners, who can mold their desired scope and priorities around the contract documents.
In a departure from the more traditional performance contacting practices provided by Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), the BEPC model does not necessarily require contractors to provide performance guarantees, an approach that offers flexibility to owners of investment-grade office buildings. Owners who prefer to use their own standard contracts can do so yet still incorporate BEPC language as exhibits to an agreement. Qualified contractors – in addition to ESCOs – can also use BEPC. These contractors can carry an insurance policy to compensate owners for any deficit or provide a guarantee of energy savings.
The BEPC model also takes a more flexible approach to M&V (measurement and verification) through the option of separate, standalone M&V agreements. Owners can cancel such agreements at one year or later, a choice that reduces their M&V costs.
“Owners who know that their retrofit is performing may not need a 10-year guarantee, which often has a lot of M&V costs,” says BOMA Fellow Brenna Walraven, President and CEO of Corporate Sustainability Strategies, Inc.
BEPC also facilitates financing by integrating the Investor Confidence Project (ICP), whose best practices help ensure that energy retrofits perform as expected and thus are attractive to lenders. BEPC accommodates the latest financing options, including PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy), on-bill, and other third-party and self-financing options.
The free BEPC toolkit with editable template documents, including energy performance contracts, RFQs and RFPs, and investment-grade audits, can be downloaded at www.boma.org/BEPC.
