AT&T—a nationwide communications, media and entertainment, and technology company—has implemented thousands of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and was looking for a solution to programmatically deploy energy savings projects across its portfolio at greater scale and speed.
The corporate real estate team at AT&T worked with Redative to outline some of the challenges of portfolio-wide facility upgrades and designed the EaaS model to overcome these challenges. Redaptive offers a turnkey efficiency-as-a-service solution where it pays for project development, installation, and maintenance costs and the customer makes payments based on energy (specifically kilowatt-hours) saved. The model relies on data collection from installed meters and IoT technology to accurately track and deliver energy insights to the customer through the cloud.
Redaptive and AT&T worked together to identify facilities and develop a rollout plan across hundreds of AT&T facilities, including administrative buildings, data centers,
retail stores, work centers, and telecommunications equipment buildings across the United States. Redaptive coordinated all program management and equipment procurement with numerous contractors and vendor partners to deliver the projects.
The AT&T project highlights how efficiency-as-a-service can be scaled to accomplish portfolio-wide efficiency initiatives. Redaptive has installed equipment upgrades at nearly 650 facilities across the country through the EaaS model. Additional details on the project can be found in the video showcase.
Efficiency-as-a-service is a pay-for-performance, off-balance sheet financing solution that allows customers to implement energy and water efficiency projects with no upfront capital expenditure. The provider pays for project development, installation, and maintenance costs. Once a project is operational, the customer makes service payments that are based on actual energy savings or other equipment performance metrics, resulting in immediate reduced operating expenses. Redaptive and AT&T have a master agreement that streamlines the addition of new sites or technologies into the portfolio program.
Redaptive’s efficiency-as-a-service solution typically involves five main steps:
- Planning & Audit: Redaptive develops a strategic plan for the project and audits the customer’s sites to gather necessary data and information.
- Design, Review, & Approve: Once Redaptive has all the project information, their team works with the customer to optimize the project design and scope.
- Efficiency Upgrade & Meter Install: Redaptive manages a network of installation partners and crews to procure and install all the efficiency and system metering equipment at the customer’s sites.
- Customer Acceptance: Once the project is completed, Redaptive reviews the installations with the customer to ensure that all criteria and expectations are met.
- Measurement & Savings: Following acceptance of the project, the resultant energy savings are measured by Redaptive and the customer is billed on a monthly basis for a portion of the energy saved.
Example of efficiency-as-a-service financing term
Redaptive is using the following technologies to reduce energy and water consumption and monitor performance data for AT&T:
- LED lighting that typically reduces electricity consumption by 60%
- Advanced submeters with the ability to transmit an ongoing stream of energy performance data to the cloud
- Smart irrigation systems to reduce water waste and detect leaks for properties with landscaping
Additionally, Redaptive and AT&T are evaluating incorporating HVAC optimization technologies into the next phase of the program.
The project is ongoing as AT&T and Redaptive continue to scale the partnership to additional facilities and evaluate new technologies. As of March 2019, efficiency upgrades have been implemented at nearly 650 sites across the country, enabling nearly $20 million in aggregated annual energy savings.
Through the efficiency-as-a-service project with AT&T and other similar projects, Redaptive achieved its Better Buildings funding goal in 2018.
Redaptive
Redaptive is a data driven, energy efficiency retrofit company that deploys unique capital solutions to clients across the country.
AT&T
AT&T is a nationwide communications, media and entertainment, and technology company. AT&T has a goal in place to enable carbon savings 10x the footprint of its operations.
White paper describing AT&T & Redaptives Efficiency-as-a-Service that helps companies overcome the capital cost and other barriers that can prevent adoption of efficient building infrastructure such as lighting and heating/cooling equipment.
