Energy management firms have struggled to find financing for energy-efficiency contracts as credit conditions remain less-than-ideal.
The energy savings created by energy-efficiency investment generates the cash flow for the lease payments.
On this analysis, they may adopt even more ambitious energy-efficiency targets, if not emissions limits.
For example, former New York governor George Pataki was widely recognized for pioneering energy-efficiency policies and regulations.
"There are ways of getting around the energy-efficiency issue of ethanol, " says Pernick.
In an energy-efficiency plan released with its road map, the commission talks of making the goals binding in 2013.
Power companies in Western U.S. states have begun listing energy-efficiency as a central part of their long-term resource portfolio strategies.
They also account for 92% and 70% of the benefits of new energy-efficiency standards for washing machines and refrigerators respectively.
That's why I'm calling on Congress to provide new temporary incentives for Americans to make energy-efficiency retrofit investments in their homes.
An ESCO provides energy-efficiency-related and other value-added services and for which performance contracting is a core part of its energy-efficiency services business.
Energy-efficiency and fuel-switching, for example, accounted for 40% of the projects started last year, while biomass, wind- and hydro-power made up another 24%.
"This research shows that there's still more work to be done with consumer advice, product innovation and take up of energy-efficiency labelling, " he said.
"Data centers are hugely consumptive forces, " said Kevin Klustner, chief executive of Verdiem, a Seattle-based start-up that has developed energy-efficiency software for computer systems.
But he left government work because he always wanted to start a company and he saw energy--particularly energy efficiency--as an area likely to grow.
Distributed energy aims to decouple profits and consumption so that power companies have a greater incentive to invest in energy-efficiency technologies that drive distributed-energy networks.
The spending spree on energy-efficiency start-up companies is still going strong.
But fuel and energy-efficiency regulations are now being justified not by such social benefits, but by private benefits like reduced spending on fuel and electricity.
Boosting energy-efficiency and the use of renewables not only helps secure energy supplies and cuts local pollution, but also helps keep carbon emissions in check too.
Hitting the energy-efficiency targets would reduce demand for those permits, in which case their price might fall too low to encourage further investment into low-carbon technologies.
The roll-up of energy-efficiency start-up companies by large energy services companies like Schneider Electric is largely resulting from the structure of the market more than anything else.
There have been ideas about increasing energy-efficiency standards in buildings much as Carol has worked tirelessly to do with cars, light trucks and heavy duty trucks for the very first time.
Everywhere I go, I see it with my own eyes -- like energy-efficiency and high-speed rail, relatively small amounts of recovery dollars will leverage very, very large investments in those areas.
Everybody would benefit from more energy-efficiency in their home.
It said basic energy-efficiency measures such as loft and cavity insulation, double glazing and new boilers had prevented up to 35, 000 Scottish households from falling into fuel poverty over the past year.
As part of its most recent five-year plan, Beijing set an ambitious goal to reduce its energy "intensity"--a common measure of a country's energy efficiency--by 20% from the 2005 level by 2010.
An audit has found that EU-funded energy efficiency projects are not cost-effective in EU member states.
What we need is a serious, sustained, all-of-the-above strategy for American-made energy, American-made efficiency, American innovation, American fuel-efficient trucks, American fuel-efficient cars.
Using smarter technologies, more brains and less money to wring more work from less delivered energy--what energy experts call "end-use efficiency"--is the largest, cheapest, safest, cleanest, fastest, most diverse, least visible, least understood and most neglected way to provide energy services.
To raise pubilc and political awareness about the benefits of going green and increasing energy efficiency -- and perhaps pick up an additional sponsor or two for its second-gen aircraft (currently in development) meant to fly around the world in 2015.
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