DeepSummary
Bob Hinkle, the founder and executive chairman at Metrus Energy, explains the concept of 'energy as a service' as a financing solution where third-party providers like Metrus develop, finance, own, and operate energy efficiency and sustainable energy projects for businesses, schools, hospitals, and factories. This model enables customers to access energy savings, sustainable heating and cooling, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions without upfront costs.
Hinkle shares how his diverse experience in economic development and energy projects led him to found Metrus, recognizing the untapped potential for financing energy efficiency projects. He discusses the key factors contributing to the significant rise of the $5.4 billion energy as a service industry, including increased understanding, upfront financing, bundled services, and performance-based payments.
The episode also explores emerging technologies like heat pumps and controls, international considerations for energy as a service projects, effective government policies and regulations for driving energy efficiency investment, and future trends and opportunities in the sector, such as moving beyond energy savings as the sole metric for project performance.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Energy as a service is a financing model where third-party providers develop, finance, own, and operate energy efficiency and sustainable energy projects for customers, reducing upfront costs and billing based on measured performance.
- The energy as a service industry has grown significantly due to increased understanding, upfront financing, bundled services, and performance-based payments.
- Emerging technologies like heat pumps, controls, and cloud-connected systems are expected to impact the future of energy efficiency solutions.
- International considerations for energy as a service projects include factors like energy subsidies in developing countries, contractor networks, and blended financing with development agencies.
- Effective government policies and regulations, such as tax incentives, building energy ratings, emission limits, and climate risk disclosure requirements, are driving investment in energy efficiency projects.
- Future trends in the energy efficiency sector include moving beyond energy savings as the sole metric for project performance and considering other factors like capacity, resiliency, and health/safety benefits.
- Energy efficiency is increasingly recognized as a critical resource for climate change mitigation, alongside renewable energy sources, at international climate conferences.
- Hinkle's diverse experience in economic development and energy projects led him to found Metrus Energy to address the financing gap for energy efficiency projects.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “The cheapest and most efficient kilowatt hour of electricity was the one that you don't use.“ by Bob Hinkle
- “Energy efficiency has come a long way in terms of being viewed as a critical resource.“ by Bob Hinkle
- “Energy efficiency has been around for a while, and one of the areas that's always been front and center to every energy efficiency project is that energy efficiency projects pay for themselves.“ by Bob Hinkle
- “With a move towards electrification and other decarbonization initiatives, there's a lot of work that needs to get done that is still within the domain of energy efficiency, but has a bit more of an infrastructure element to it.“ by Bob Hinkle
- “At the last COP meeting in Dubai, energy efficiency actually really almost made it finally to center stage, sharing it, sharing the spotlight with renewable energy.“ by Bob Hinkle
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Climate Changers
Ryan Flahive
4/26/24