Bluestone Energy was recently interviewed for an article on trends in energy conservation. From the article:
Of about 70 billion square feet (6.5 billion sq meters) of U.S. office space, as little as 1 billion square feet (93 million sq meters) have been retrofitted, Terzic said.
To illustrate the potential, McKinsey & Co projected that U.S. investments of $520 billion in building efficiency through 2020 would yield $1.2 trillion in energy savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 gigatons annually — the amount emitted by the entire current fleet of U.S. vehicles.
Existing players in the field of energy conservation are Honeywell International Inc, Johnson Controls Inc, Siemens AG, Ingersoll-Rand Plc, and United Technologies Corp. Recent entrants are Chevron Corp, Cisco Systems Inc, IBM Corp, and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Massachusetts-based Bluestone Energy Services Ltd is among dozens of expanding privately-held companies tapping into the demand, having doubled in size last year and again this year.
“Our forte is we work with the utility companies to qualify those solutions for incentive money. We also bundle tax incentives,” said Bluestone Vice President Adam Fairbanks.
Future energy savings can collateralize the financing for the retrofit, and utility grants and government tax credits can help defray the initial cost, he said.
A growing number of utilities add a fee to customer bills and then issue grants to businesses for energy-saving projects. Customers who install solar, wind, geothermal or other power-saving systems and appliances can also get rebates.
