The Investor Confidence Project (ICP) is pleased to announce the release of version 2.2 of its ICP Protocols. This latest update reflects our ongoing commitment to refining and enhancing our standards to better serve the energy efficiency industry. Version 2.2 incorporates valuable feedback from market participants and aligns with the latest industry practices, ensuring that our protocols remain both practical and forward-looking.
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Key enhancements in version 2.2 include updated technical requirements, streamlined documentation processes, and clarified performance measurement and verification guidance. These improvements reduce project development time, enhance transparency, and increase investor confidence in energy efficiency projects. By integrating insights from diverse stakeholders, we have ensured that the protocols are robust and adaptable to various project types and scales.
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We invite all stakeholders—project developers, investors, and energy service companies—to review the updated protocols and provide feedback. Your input is crucial in our mission to standardize energy efficiency projects and unlock investment at scale. For more information and to access the updated protocols, please visit  www.eeperformance.org. Access the latest protocols in the IREE Certification dropdown, and track changes housed in your Technical Forum.

Investor Ready Energy Efficiency (IREE) certification offers a groundbreaking approach to energy efficiency by establishing a standard asset class for commercial retrofits. Standardization is crucial for defining how building retrofit projects are developed, engineered, and implemented and how their performance is measured.  Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI)’s IREE certification aligns existing industry-accepted technical standards into a standardized project development and quality assurance process to ensure that energy efficiency projects are consistent and adhere to high performance
and impact criteria.

Author: Ben Evans
​This article was originally featured in Fortune on July 12, 2023. Read the original article here.

Following the commitments of governments, corporations, and institutions, billions in funding have been allocated to build a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. In the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) alone includes an estimated $369 billion in energy and climate provisions. These commitments represent an enormous challenge and opportunity to target critical barriers to meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reductions, which means we must not overlook our existing buildings.


While many sectors of the U.S. economy are reducing emissions, the buildings sector is a major exception, largely due to aging existing buildings. Homes and buildings account for 40% of U.S. energy consumption and at least 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions–more than any other sector of the economy.


Of the country’s roughly 6 million commercial buildings, 75% are more than 20 years old. Given that these buildings will be in use for decades to come, they must be retrofitted to achieve the world’s climate commitments. The International Energy Agency estimates that we need to retrofit 20% of global building space by 2030 to meet emissions targets, or 2.5% of building space annually.
Smart policy and program design can offer a path to realizing both commercial and residential retrofits at a rapid pace.


Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the initial program design of its $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a key climate financing initiative in the IRA. Over $19 billion of the fund will flow to nonprofit grantees, which will then allocate the funds to community financing institutions, such as green banks, community development finance institutions, and credit unions to invest in projects that lower pollution and energy costs.

The EPA rightly identified building efficiency improvements as one of three priority areas for funding. And as the agency moves closer to putting money on the street, it would be smart to look closely at a program implemented by our neighbors to the North that has successfully streamlined and accelerated similar investments in retrofit projects.


In 2020, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $2 billion investment in large-scale building retrofits as part of a national growth plan that would be funded by the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Since the announcement, the bank quickly ramped up a Building Retrofits Initiative to execute these investments. As of March 2023, the initiative has made $900 million in building efficiency investment commitments.


The bank’s unique approach provides a model for how public funds in the U.S. can be deployed into retrofit projects at the pace and scale required to move the needle on climate targets. By tying interest rates directly to carbon emissions reductions, the bank’s program incentivizes investment in projects with the greatest potential for climate impact, pushing funding to projects that deliver strong results.
The model used by the bank also brings standardization to predicting and documenting the potential energy savings associated with retrofit investments, overcoming complexity and bureaucracy that have historically been major barriers to investing in building efficiency at scale.


Today, it is typical for investors to utilize their own idiosyncratic approaches to predict and document project energy savings. This market fragmentation makes assessing project returns costly and evaluating project risks difficult. These challenges are compounded when operating an initiative responsible for deploying $2 billion.


To overcome these challenges, the Canadian retrofits initiative turned to Investor Ready Energy Efficiency (IREE) certification. Originally developed by the Environmental Defense Fund and now administered by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), IREE provides third-party verification that the estimated savings associated with a proposed retrofit project have been determined and documented following industry best practices.


IREE certification enables the Canada Infrastructure Bank to partner with firms across the country that can develop and bundle retrofit projects at scale. It also makes underwriting the performance of these otherwise unique investment opportunities easier. The result is more potential projects sourced and evaluated at a lower cost. By uniting all its partners under a common framework, the Canada Infrastructure Bank is moving the retrofit market a step closer to the standardization that is common in other more efficient markets, such as those for mortgages, car loans, and solar power purchase agreements.


This article excerpt was originally featured in Fortune on July 12, 2023. Read the full article here.

EcoGreen Solutions is an energy services firm that has helped thousands of organizations cut costs through energy-efficiency improvements since its founding in 2007. When the firm began following the IREE protocols for PG&E’s OBF program, they quickly realized that using the protocols as a standardized process for developing all projects would allow their team to reach many more customers. 

“IREE provides a recipe that standardizes the entire project development process. So, we jumped at the opportunity to engrain this standardization into our business model,” explains Corey.  

​Embracing IREE protocols fully enabled EcoGreen Solutions to break the development process into a precise series of ten to fifteen-minute tasks. “What took thirty to forty hours of a professional engineer's time now takes nine hours,” continues Corey. You can imagine the impact that has on profitability.” 

Not only did the embrace of IREE substantially reduce project costs, but the time savings also allowed EcoGreen Solutions to more than double the number of energy-efficiency projects they complete each year. ​

The benefits of IREE go beyond improved efficiency and output. With standardization comes consistency and quality. Each IREE project is vetted through a rigorous quality assessment and third-party certification process. This gives project financiers confidence in energy savings projections.

“The embrace of IREE has given us a competitive advantage when it comes to bidding projects. As a result, we’ve seen a huge uptick in the number of projects we are winning in the public sector,” shares Corey. “It’s hard to compete [with EcoGreen] when we are delivering projects that come with [the additional credibility of a] third-party certification.”  

Visit www.eeperformance.org to learn more about IREE certification or contact the IREE team at icp@gbci.org.  

OVERVIEW:
PG&E’s Energy Efficiency Financing program enables qualified, non-residential PG&E customers with a means to finance energy efficiency retrofit projects intended to replace worn-out equipment with more energy efficient models. Customers are offered a 0% interest loan that is in-line with the monthly energy savings from the project upgrades, payable through their monthly energy bill.
 
On Wednesday, July 10, 2019, the On-Bill Financing (OBF) Team will host a “Multiple QA Processes” webinar. An official agenda will be provided closer to the webinar date.
 
WHY IS THIS RELEVANT TO ME:
The Energy Efficiency program uses Investor Confidence Project (ICP) certified Quality Assurance (QA) reviewers to validate pre/post financing projects and confirm the energy savings amount per project, which determines the end customer’s final loan amount.
 
Currently, only one QA serves as PG&E’s main QA reviewer for Energy Efficiency Financing project opportunities. However, in order to scale and streamline the Energy Efficiency program, PG&E is moving from a single QA reviewer to multiple certified QA reviewers, with their own business relationships with the project developers of financed energy efficiency projects.
 
By joining our Energy Efficiency program, your company can generate additional revenue streams while significantly helping drive the energy efficiency objectives of PG&E and the entire state of California.
 
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW:
This webinar will provide all the information of participating in the PG&E Energy Efficiency program as a QA reviewer, from enrollment to the systems you will access to validate and confirm the energy savings per financing project.
 
For additional information, check out the Project Developer/Trade Pro Webpage, visit the OBF Webpage.

CONTACT OBF:
 Program Manager: Peter Thompson
 Webinar Hosts: Nadia Hassen | Tarun Kapoor
 
Questions about becoming a Project Developer/Trade Pro and upcoming trainings: Joe Isaacs
 
If you have any additional questions or would like to learn more about the OBF program, contact OBFProgram@pge.com or visit the OBF Wiki Page.

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