Making Shared Energy Savings Work

Shared energy savings SES is a low investment, low risk contracting procedure that can significantly increase energy efficiency at DoD installations. By decreasing installations energy use by only 10 percent, SES can save some 300 million a year. Under SES, contractors finance and implement efficiency measures and share the resulting dollar savings with DoD. Notwithstanding its low risk and low investment, however, SES faces several obstacles Establishing prior energy use - baselines - in DoD buildings in order to measure savings is difficult since 1 very few buildings are individually metered, and 2 most energy service companies have no confidence in computer-simulated baselines Installation managers are unwilling to implement SES without the guarantee they will receive a portion of DoDs share of savings Uncertainties regarding the applicability of law and regulation to SES contracting are slowing implementation The Military Departments have not agreed upon the appropriate economic criteria to be used in the competitive award of SES contracts.