Industry news

摘要

One contractor, Hill York, started up a performance group this past March called Hygreen. "A couple of years ago, we saw the construction economy going in a direction that was not good for us," said president Jeff Phillabaum. "We started looking at where the future of Hill York was going. What was the most beneficial new market? Energy and performance was an area we wanted to grow. We really started looking into developing a business that we focus around that." Energyservicescoalition.org describes performance contracting as "a mechanism to implement resource efficiency improvements with minimal up-front costs. It uses savings resulting from the efficiency project to pay for the work over time." The coalition stated, "You enter into an agreement with a private energy service company (ESCO). The ESCO will identify and evaluate energy-saving opportunities and then recommend a package of improvements to be paid for through savings. The ESCO will guarantee that savings meet or exceed annual payments to cover all project costs - usually over a contract term of seven to 10 years. If savings don't materialize, the ESCO pays the difference, not you. To ensure savings, the ESCO offers staff training and long-term maintenance services."