Edison Energy in Irvine has teamed up with Renew Energy Partners of Boston, which is providing a $300 million fund to help companies and institutions modernize their energy usage as they seek to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The goal of the Accelerate Program is straightforward: put up the cash for energy changes so the businesses themselves don’t have to. That way, the “innovative flexible funding program” lets companies reach decarbonization goals without putting up their own money up front.
Edison will design the decarbonization strategies while Renew will supply the capital to execute these strategies.
Edison Energy said its clients in Orange County include Irvine Co.
As a wholly owned subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE: EIX), Edison Energy provides independent advice and services to help large corporate, industrial, and institutional clients better understand and navigate the choices and risks of managing energy.
Companies often don’t put money “toward non-core things,” said Bill Kenworthy, the Edison Energy vice president for energy optimization.
To keep decarbonization moving forward, the client will get the up-front money for the changes from the $300 million fund.
“Edison Energy would do the technical design of it,” Kenworthy told the Business Journal on Feb. 22. “We would implement the actual solution.”
Sustainability, Efficiency
“We give them a diagnosis of exactly where they are,” Kenworthy said. “We have the engineers to build it. We carry that whole use case all the way through.”
Edison Energy gets its revenue from fees charged to the client under the Accelerate Program, according to Kenworthy.
He calls it a “transparent fee” that’s “commensurate with the value that we provide.”
Renew Energy Partners charges fees to the clients at an embedded financing rate, according to Kenworthy.
Edison Energy has about 100 employees nationally, with 15 of them in Irvine, according to Kenworthy.
Some of the decarbonization alternatives may include items such as solar energy systems, parking canopies and chargers for electric vehicles, according to Kenworthy.
“We’re sort of the engineer of record here. We’ll go out and we’ll get multiple bids for electrical contractors,” he said.
Carbon Reduction
Edison will design the decarbonization strategies while Renew will supply the capital to execute these strategies, focusing on the commercial, industrial and institutional markets.
Renew Energy says it helps building owners upgrade their commercial and industrial buildings with new energy-saving systems without investing or borrowing. It says building operations—lighting, cooling and heating—account for 28% of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
Renew co-founder Doug Foy was a special adviser on greenhouse gas emissions to Michael Bloomberg when he was mayor of New York City. Foy also spent 25 years as head of the Conservation Law Foundation, a New England environmental advocacy organization.
The fund will also offer solutions for other clean energy projects such as electric vehicle fleet infrastructure, microgrids, and onsite renewable energy generation.
Simplifying Projects
“The clean energy transition is here, and companies and organizations are starting to step up in a big way to decarbonize,” said Oded Rhone, CEO of Edison Energy. “The Accelerate Program will make it easier for companies to meet their sustainability goals by simplifying projects and reducing risk, carbon, and costs.”
“The new program will focus on simplifying projects that create carbon savings by delivering them as a service and reducing risk to customers who will pay only for measured and verified savings,” the two companies said last month.
