I’ve shared our data about the barriers that exist for most Americans to making energy efficiency improvements, and I’ve shared my own story about getting conflicting recommendations from my utility’s energy auditor vs. two contractors on the utility’s list – all at a price point that’s waaaaay higher than I imagined with no promise of a specific benefit or a return on my investment. I’ve begged anyone who would listen in the residential energy efficiency arena to do this differently.

I’ve found someone who is. And I hope the whole industry learns from them.

The company on the leading edge is Fort Collins Utilities. That’s right, a utility. And a small, municipally owned one at that.

The Department of Energy recently created a comprehensive case study on what Fort Collins did, and you can read it here. I want to hit the high points of their approach, point out why it works, share the results they shared with me and then do a little compare-and-contrast to a recent statement from a former CEO of an investor-owned utility.

They recognized that while they had a “pretty good” home energy efficiency program, it was really complicated, with many steps where customers could fall off and do nothing. They also recognized that the customer experience in most cases was similar to the one I’ve bellyached about: every contractor recommends a different approach at a different price point, and the homeowner has no idea what to do … so they do nothing.

In a stroke of brilliance, the folks at Fort Collins figured out that they could streamline the process using standardized pricing to eliminate the time and complexity of the original program approach. They identified neighborhoods populated by folks with a higher propensity to participate in energy efficiency – and with homes of a certain age, ripe with opportunities to save energy and improve comfort, health and safety.

Once Fort Collins Utilities gets a customer interested, based on that targeted marketing approach, an independent third-party assessor (not a contractor) analyzes each home to understand both the opportunities and the customer expectations. That assessor then offers up good/better/best package options that can be customized to meet the specific customer’s goals. The assessor is able to be specific about the cost, energy savings and comfort gain with each option. From a homeowner perspective, this experience is quite different from the usual – and quite reassuring. She knows what she’s buying, and she knows what she’ll get for her investment.

Fort Collins maximized its marketing spend by starting on the neighborhoods and homes with the most bang for the energy buck – the neighborhoods and homes that, when fixed, would help Fort Collins make major progress toward their climate reduction goals.

Over 50% of homeowners, when presented with the good/better/best options, chose the best option. This has resulted thus far in 50% more electric savings, 70% more gas savings and 60% more carbon reduction than they were seeing with the former approach – and their former approach is the way most utilities do their programs. So, quite literally, if every utility in America wanted to increase their savings and drastically reduce their carbon output, they’d simply follow the Fort Collins model. It’s well documented and ready to go … turnkey for the utility and for the utility’s customers.

You can read the article here, but the key quote I want to call attention to is this:

​”​Let’s face it: Absolutely no positive indicators suggest that conventional energy company CEOs should hazard the perilous journey from brown to green on their own. For the climate movement, it reinforces the essential truth of the criticality of corporate procurement: the energy industry will decarbonize only if and when big energy buyers give producers a deadline and tell them, thereafter, they no longer will buy power from any company that combusts fossil fuels.”​

If you’re not familiar, David Crane championed and pursued a goal of turning one of the nation’s largest utilities from brown to green. Wall Street didn’t like it, the share price fell, and he was ousted. I’d enhance the quote above by saying, yes, the energy industry will shift from brown to green when the largest energy consumers demand it (and this is starting to happen, as noted in my post here). It will also start to happen when fearless leaders from energy companies prove out the benefits to their organization, their customers and the world at large. Fearless leaders like those at Fort Collins Utilities.