Commercial energy efficiency incentive programs wrestle with how to best serve the new construction market – in particular small buildings. Modeling energy performance of buildings less than 100,000 square feet may not be justified due to cost and limited savings potential, yet a prescriptive approach does not promote an integrated design process and misses the opportunity to drive deeper savings. Using lessons learned from a successful two-year pilot, a multidisciplinary team collaborated on the development and promotion of a new offering called “Market Solutions,” designed specifically to address the barriers to participation in the new construction small commercial market. Market Solutions provides a per-square-foot incentive for good, better and best incentive packages of cost-effective measures. Savings and incentives are based on prototypical building models created for six different building types. Offerings for office, retail and restaurant building types were introduced in June 2012, with the school, multi-family and grocery offerings following in March 2013. Early results have been impressive. Since launching the program, 87 projects have enrolled in the six Market Solutions offerings. At least 22 projects will have completed construction by the summer of 2014. We will examine the successes and opportunities for improving our offerings by studying several aspects of Market Solutions, including how well buildings fit within the prototypical building models and ease of use from the perspective of both the owner and the program operation.
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