Englewood Firm Picked To Generate Energy Savings In Public Buildings Across Colorado

Englewood, CO (October 2, 2007) – – Ameresco, a global energy services provider, with offices in Englewood, expects to audit Colorado state, local government and other public buildings’ energy use, design and implement retrofits in these buildings, and guarantee the amount of energy that can be saved, now that the company has been pre-approved by the state’s lead agency on energy efficiency.

Buildings in Colorado are some of the largest consumers of energy and their operations generate emissions that contribute to global climate change. To encourage cities, building owners and state agencies to investigate potential energy savings in buildings they operate, the Colorado Governor’s Energy office (GEO) selected Ameresco and ten other companies to execute energy services performance contracts (ESPC) that allow building owners to upgrade their energy equipment without an upfront capital expenditure.

Governor Ritter has emphasized energy efficiency’s essential role in the New Energy Economy for Colorado and has set important goals for state and public entities to achieve. The Governor’s Energy Office Performance Contracting program will be the primary tool used to reduce the energy consumption of existing state facilities. “This new program makes it easier for customers, like state agencies or cities to confidently undertake the performance contracting process and eliminates literally months of time spent previously in qualification of each company. Not only will this save significant time upfront on these projects, but these 11 ESCos are now going to bring performance contracting to the next level by encouraging renewable energy technologies such as solar and geothermal projects,” said Tom Plant, director of GEO.

“Our goal is to deliver Colorado building owners energy efficiency projects that are entirely self-funded,” says Ameresco Vice-President, Trip Tripathi. “Across the country and here in Colorado, we’ve saved property owners hundreds of thousands of dollars with our method of replacing inefficient equipment with high-efficiency products that do not impact comfort or operations but use significantly less energy.”

Ameresco completed a comprehensive energy services project for Colorado State University – Pueblo. An investment of $6.5 million in energy conservation and infrastructure renewal measures is generating $417,000 per year in operating cost reductions. The company is also working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on a clean energy biomass power plant to be built on NREL’s Golden campus.

As a pre-qualified energy services provider in Colorado, Ameresco will offer a full range of services that encompass energy and water efficiency, renewable and traditional energy infrastructure, operations and maintenance, and energy procurement and management.

Under an ESPC, loans or bonds are used to pay for lighting, HVAC, refrigeration, or other energy equipment retrofits. Once the work is completed, building owners pay back the loans, plus interest, using the money saved on their energy bills as a result of the retrofits. The benefits of reduced energy demand are immediate. Once the financing is paid off, the full energy savings belong to the building owner.

As the industry’s largest, independent service provider, Ameresco is equipment and technology neutral, allowing its engineers to use the most appropriate, state-of-the-art technologies for a particular project. Ameresco can leverage this flexibility to provide unique solutions that meet each customer’s specific project needs.

With over 30 years of history, Ameresco’s projects represent nearly $4 billion USD worth of energy projects worldwide.