The Investor Confidence Project team was pleased to participate and present at the ACEEE Finance Forum earlier this week in Chicago.  The image above is a graphic presented by Citi that summarizes there perspective on various EE Finance Products and Property Types.  This perspective is particular to securitization and debt markets.

The good news is that over the last few years of EE finance conferences, we have seen this graphic move more and more into "green."  Commercial projects remain a difficult nut to crack, which is exactly why the Investor Confidence Project exists.  While senior markets are not interested in taking on performance risk, they need systems like ICP to enable investment grade entities to manage this risk for them in a way that insulates capital markets from risk associated with project performance.

The undeniable power of Solar Leasing and PPAs is now the driving force in all major PV markets. These energy service contracts (by another name) allow homeowners to go solar without upfront investment and without long-term performance or equipment risk.  Clearly it is working.  

The Investor Confidence Project believes we can capture this same momentum in the energy efficiency market.  Clearly EE is more complicated, however there is no technical reason that we can't produce a very similar consumer value proposition in both the residential and commercial sectors.  

It was not long ago that solar was in the same boat.  Less than 10 years ago just about the only finance mechanism in residential was the home equity loan or a bank account with $25K in it... and a healthy personal tax appetite.  A little data, and some right thinking policy and energy efficiency can begin to offer a similar proposition and join our friend in the solar industry, selling customer what they want as service.