Many electrical contractors are ready, willing, and able to manage lighting retrofits and other green projects, but financing can often be an obstacle.
At a seminar on Day 3 of the 2016 NECA Convention, Bruce Trachtenberg, general manager of the Clean Technology Business Unit at DLL, and Ramsay Stevens, who manages NECA’s E-CAP program, offered some insight into how contractors can utilize E-CAP (Energy Conservation and Performance Platform) and DLL’s financing solutions for clean energy projects. NECA says on its website that E-CAP removes obstacles for implementation of energy retrofit projects by integrating the inclusion of best-practice project surety, project finance structuring and project funding solutions into the project development process.
Trachtenberg says DLL is ready to provide financing for projects valued at $10,000 or less to tens of millions of dollars, which was the case recently with a $50 million street lighting project. He said most of these projects are financed over three or four years but some have a 10-year term.
Trachtenberg and Ramsay agreed that when proposing an energy-efficiency project to customers, NECA contractors should assume that because customer probably won’t have any budget allocated for the project, providing financing can help move the project forward. Ramsay added that one of the core goals of E-CAP is matching a contractor with the resources they need to complete the project, whether it’s E-CAP’s software program for evaluating green projects, training them to do energy audits or self-financing.
NECA and DLL recently signed a partnership in which DLL is the preferred source of leasing services for energy efficiency and solar projects for NECA member contractors nationwide. “Our goal is to give NECA members an advantage over the guy who comes in and says, ‘This is what I can do for you and this is how much it’s going to cost,’” Trachtenberg said in the press release announcing the partnership. “They’re going to be able to walk into the room and say, ‘This is what I can do for you and this is how you can get it without spending an extra dime.’”
