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Episode #153: 'The Evolving Utility Landscape with ESCOs as the Catalysts for Change' with Tim Unruh, Executive Director of NAESCO [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast]

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A key part to the modern utility landscape includes Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) and their transformative impact on the power industry landscape. As a part of this evolving corner of utilities, the National Association of Energy Service Companies (NAESCO) is driving change within the industry, supporting ESCOs in optimizing energy efficiency, and shaping the future of sustainable practices. In this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast, NAESCO Executive Director, Tim Unruh, joins the conversation to highlight the emerging trends that will shape the energy sector in the years to come.

Listen in as Tim guides podcast host Jason Price and producer Matt Chester on a deep dive into the world of ESCOs and their pivotal role in optimizing energy consumption and promoting sustainability. With a focus on the ESCO sector's impact on utilities and their customers, the conversation features Tim drawing on his extensive background in power and energy, providing valuable insights into the historical relationship between ESCOs and utilities, the role of NAESCO in supporting the U.S. ESCO industry, and the key opportunities and challenges in the ever-evolving energy landscape.

 

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Thanks to the sponsor of this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast: West Monroe. 

 

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Did you know? The Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast has been identified as one of the industry's 'Top Energy Podcasts': blog.feedspot.com/energy_podcasts/ 

 

TRANSCRIPT

Jason Price:

Welcome to the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast, the show that brings leading minds from the energy industry to discuss the challenges and trends that are transforming and modernizing our energy system. And a quick thank you to West Monroe, our sponsor of today's show. Now let's talk energy. I'm Jason Price, Energy Central Podcast host and director with West Monroe, coming to you from New York City. And with me as always, from Orlando, Florida is Energy Central producer and community manager, Matt Chester. Matt, we talk so much about the utility industry specifically on this podcast, but today we're going to talk about the sector that works under, with, and around the utilities themselves, ESCOs. Can you pull for us the direct ESCO definition as a precursor to today's episode?

 

Matt Chester:

Absolutely, Jason. So as we said before we deep dive into the ESCO discussion, it's important to really fully understand what that means. So ESCO, which is E-S-C-O, it stands for Energy Service Company and these are the entities that operate in the realm of energy efficiency mainly. They work under, with, and around utilities, offering a range of services aimed at optimizing energy consumption, promoting overall sustainable practices, and essentially ESCOs act as catalysts for positive change within the energy landscape. So we're excited to explore their impact further in today's discussion.

 

Jason Price:

Thanks for the context, Matt. And yes, our guest today will probably be the best person we could possibly pull in to give an inside view into the ESCO industry, the impacts it's having on utilities and their customers, and what the ever evolving landscape of technologies and financially offerings look like. We're being joined today by Tim Unruh, the executive director at the National Association of Energy Service Companies, or NAESCO, N-A-E-S-C-O. Tim also has a deep power and energy track record before that, having spent years at Consumers Energy, ConEdison, and even the U.S. Department of Energy before being tapped as the executive director in 2018. We're eager to hear what we can learn from his unique vantage point of view. So let's bring him in. Tim, welcome to the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

 

Tim Unruh:

Thanks, Jason. It's great to be here. And we've already started off on a good step with Matt's definition of an ESCO, so I think we're going to have a great time today.

 

Jason Price:

Fantastic. And we're thrilled to have you here. So thank you again for joining us. To start off, the relation between ESCO and utilities comes from a long history, but some listeners might not be 100% clear on the role of ESCOs and how they operate. So can you provide the quick overview of the ESCO sector for us?

 

Tim Unruh:

Yeah, Jason, it's a long history. Ironically, we're celebrating our 40th anniversary this year of NAESCO, so it's great to have a chance to talk about some of the history behind how we got to where we are. NAESCO kind of came out of the 1970s efficiency push. Remember when we had efficiency rules that were really detrimental to operation. Remember, you had to drive slow, the 55 mile an hour speed limit. We had lights that we had to dim, and so we didn't have as much light as we wanted to have in our spaces. We had temperatures that were always set colder than we wanted to be or warmer than we wanted to be. And so we didn't really strive for comfort, we just were just hitting energy any way we could, any way that didn't necessarily understand how the impact to occupants was. Then in 1980s, we started to figure out that with new technologies, we could actually save energy and not just cut back on the space environment, but make it nicer and make it so that people enjoyed the indoor environment better.

And so a lot of times, many ESCOs were starting out with utility companies. Either a utility company was a partner to a company that was an energy service company or a utility started their own energy service company. Sometimes those were within their bounds and they would do below the line work and sometimes they would do that as a subsidiary and it just vary across the country. But a lot of energy service companies, ESCOs started with utility relationships. The model was you save from building updates and these funds that you save from energy reduction and operational savings can fund the very updates that the building needs. So as you reduce the energy cost of the building, the savings from that would then fund into a loan that was taken that would then pay for that loan to upgrade the building. The savings could include energy and it could include operational savings, and in some places it includes avoided capital.

So if you thought you were going to have to replace a boiler or a chiller or a control system and you had that in your budget, you could use that to also provide a pay down of the cost of the renovation. ESCOs are really unique in three areas in the way we do business. The first is, is in the selection process. Normally when a building does renovations, they develop a scope of work. They might hire an engineer or an architect to develop a scope of work. Then they send that scope of work out to the public for bidding. Well, in an ESCO process, the ESCO develops the scope of work through an energy audit, and so there is no scope of work to bid. And so the selection process is mostly done by a qualifications and a relationship type basis. Once you selected an ESCO, they then developed something called an investment grade audit, the second unique thing. The first was selection process. The second is the investment grade audit.

The investment grade audit results in a firm fixed price, meaning that the ESCO says, I will build this project for this many dollars with no change orders. The second is it has a guaranteed savings. Those are two very unique pieces. The firm fixed price with no change orders is because the ESCO developed the scope, not the owner. The second is the guaranteed savings means that we will certainly make sure that the savings we say are going to happen are going to happen over the term of our agreement. And then finally, the third thing that's unique is the long-term performance and the fact that the energy service company has to stay with the owner for 15 or 20 years as long as the savings is needed to pay back the initial investment to ensure that performance continues to happen. Kind of a long roundabout way to get there, starting with the 70s coming up to the way projects are done today.

 

Jason Price:

It's really helpful, Tim. I appreciate that and I'm sure our audience does as well. You've done a good job helping us understand the ESCOs. Now let's learn about NAESCO. So give us a quick overview of your organization, in essence, the backup and support you provide to the US ESCO industry and its role in the water utility industry.

 

Tim Unruh:

Yeah, so NAESCO, the National Association is a trade association. We're a non-profit 503(c)(6), and as a C6 association, that allows us to provide lobbying for our members. So it's one of the things we do, is we will lobby for certain legislative actions to occur. Now that lobbying isn't just at the federal level because we have lobbying that happens at every state as well. And we combine that with another type of lobbying called advocacy. And in advocacy we're working to try to help solve problems, help to promote issues that might make the industry work better. That might be model documents, that could be the way the administrative process is working around our projects and so forth. That happens again at every state, and in some cases it happens with university systems, it'll happen with city governments, it could happen with county governments. In other words, every government entity that exists might have a performance contracting and energy service company, energy states performance contract project that they're doing and we may have to engage at all those different levels from federal all the way down to local.

We also provide training. We'll have webinars on a monthly basis. We have other training that we support where we bring in experts to tell us about how things work or things we might need to know about legislation. We might need to know about certain laws, we might need to know about codes and standards. We do networking events. Our networking events means that we bring members together with other members so that they can conduct business and get a better relationship established. Remember I talked about our industry is a heavy relationship based industry because you're working with projects for 10 to 15 years. You want to know the person you're going to sign a contract with if it's going to last that long.

And then we have events. We have national conferences. We have a federal workshop typically in the spring or late winter each year in Washington DC. We have an annual event in November, and we typically have a members only event in June. We have about 150 members today. We also provide an ESCO accreditation. We're the only organization that accredits ESCOs and many states now ask for ESCO accreditation in their request for proposal. We have about 50 of our members that are accredited today.

 

Jason Price:

Since we're on the subject, just share with us, you seeing the membership grow, are you seeing more ESCOs members or non-members? Is the market growth for ESCOs still looking strong? Just sort of paint a picture for us regarding the ESCO market and even the membership.

 

Tim Unruh:

We're an interesting industry. So our membership consists of two types of members. We have ESCO members and affiliate members. We have about 50 ESCO members today. I'm going to say that ebbs and flows. It's been gradually growing. What happens is, is we'll get some growth. We'll see two or three combined and then we'll see some shrinkage and then we'll see some new ESCOs come out and we'll see some growth again. And then we'll see some combined, we'll see some shrinkage. But that's why I say ebbs and flows throughout the years. Sometimes you'll get a company that comes in and wants to make a major investment in the ESCO industry and they'll buy two or three companies and consolidate those into one. And so we see a shrinkage when that occurs and then we'll see those companies will spawn new companies as members, as employees leave and want to start their own company and we'll see new members pop up that way.

 

Jason Price:

Sure. Just a quick follow up, are you seeing it more regionally or certain across the country or is it more on the coastals, like where you seeing,-

 

Tim Unruh:

It's just a national phenomenon. We don't really see any particular area that has any focus necessarily growing or shrinking.

 

Jason Price:

Gotcha. I want to learn more about the present-day landscape of utilities and how they view you. So do you think that leaders in this sector are counting for the opportunities from ESCOs in the best manner possible or are there areas that ESCOs are being under-recognized or underutilized that our utility listeners should be more aware of?

 

Tim Unruh:

Well, I think there's probably additional opportunities for utilities to engage with ESCOs. I guess I should first maybe kind of break it up into a couple of different areas. So in the federal market there is something called a utility energy service contract. And for federal clients, they traditionally use utilities to work with ESCOs to supply their energy efficiency projects through utility energy service contracts. That's one of the pathways. The federal sector can accomplish energy efficiency projects. And those utility energy service contracts effectively say that a federal site already has a contract for energy services from a local utility and that your local utility is likely the only service provider that's available, and therefore you don't have to have competition because you already have that single utility under contract. You can add the man-side services, which is energy efficiency to that contract in what's called a utility energy service contract.

So many utilities today are already using ESCOs to provide utility energy service contracts or UESCs. Outside of the federal market, the UESC really doesn't exist in the same fashion, although there is some opportunities for utilities and ESCOs to work together to supply public sector that are non-federal projects as well. One of the things that used to be said a lot of times was you don't really want to have energy service companies active in utility market because they're doing efficiency, which is lowering the load of the utility. However, I'll tell you, many utilities will partner with ESCOs to provide these services because a lot of times utilities are recognizing that they need to be more involved with their clients and that may mean working with their clients to improve their operations. And so I know a lot of utilities want to get a deeper relationship with their clients and they want to grow the amount of things they can do with their clients to create a closer relationship.

And there is an opportunity of working with ESCOs to help provide that efficiency, better operation, lower operational costs that the utility can then provide to their clients. A lot of times their clients, utility clients are looking to have electrification or decarbonization. They probably have some efficiency goals they're trying to accomplish. Public sector often has goals mandated to them from their elected officials. And so these public sector buildings are often looking for someone to help them achieve these goals. Utilities have the ability to come alongside and say, we've got a partner that can help do this. Let's come together and make it happen.

 

Jason Price:

It makes complete sense. And I would think that utilities these days would look at you as an ally in helping the utilities modernize and where they need to invest and they can invest in smarter ways because there's an efficiency partner that's bringing such new behaviors to the forefront. So building electrification is and will continue to be a major frontier for improvement. Electric vehicles tend to get the lion share of attention, but building electrification is just as critical, if not more so longer term. And a lot of utilities are really looking at becoming a winter utility versus a summer utility because the load shifting, especially when it comes to heating and powering buildings, especially in the winter time will become even greater than keeping them cool in the summertime.

So your role as ESCO is just going to become increasingly important as this shift continues. So I guess my question is along the lines of building electrification and you mentioned government, so I'd like you to pull the thread on government a little bit more. They're a major real estate and building owner operator. So can you talk about government buildings and what does the role of ESCOs in this and what does it mean to look at, to decarbonize the public buildings across the country? What is the scale of that and just overall, what is that looking like?

 

Tim Unruh:

Well, so ESCOs do their primary work in the public sector. Probably about 90% of the work or more that ESCOs do is with public buildings. Public buildings or government buildings are about 25% percent of all commercial buildings in the US. I know it's hard to imagine that the government has that many buildings, but when you start to think about the K-12 schools, the post offices, the cities, the counties, perhaps you have other subdivisions of government, the university buildings and the federal buildings across the country, we have a lot of different levels of government presence in our buildings, in our lives. And so we have a lot of buildings to support that. The reason government is a good market for ESCOs in the model that they provide, where the savings pay for the renovations is that when a government building needs to update its equipment, most of the time it has to have a budget approved prior to proceeding.

And that budget approval in most cases requires a vote of either the public or a vote of an elected official. And to be frank, building improvements aren't really that great to go sell to your populace. That I renovated the boiler at the courthouse. That's not going to get you votes versus I did something else with a park or something that people see. And so government funding for building renovations has often lagged and we see a lot of deferred maintenance in our buildings today. So an ESCO can come in because legislation exists in all 50 states that allow this process of energy savings, performance contracts through an ESCO, and ESCO can come in and provide a pathway that a government building can be renovated and improved and the equipment replaced while at the same time improving the building's operation, lowering its overall costs, and then providing a pathway to pay for all that.

The guarantee is required in the government process because when the legislation's established, they're saying, okay, we're going to allow someone who's not an elected official to spend state money, but only if they can do it in a budget neutral fashion. And the guarantee means that all those years down the way maintains the budget neutrality because the savings is there to provide the payment for the loan that's taken out. In other words, we'll only allow this government official to approve a new loan if they can do it in a budget neutral fashion.

For ESCOs, this has become a very strong market. We do somewhere around $7 billion a year of work in these buildings. So it's not an insignificant amount. About 25% of our work, of all of our work in that 7 billion is with K-12 schools, which is one of the most needy sets of buildings we have in our country today with I think last I saw there was $82 billion of deferred maintenance in our public schools across the U.S. So that's why we see this market growing for ESCOs and that's why there's such an incentive for ESCOs to look at the public buildings because their process fits very well with their funding needs.

 

Jason Price:

That's really interesting and I'm glad you shared that. Efficiency is the name of the game and ESCOs really drive that. But can we talk about the generation side of ESCOs? How long has this been going on where ESCOs are also involved with generation project? What percentage of portfolio reflects ESCOs in the generation side? And maybe we could just talk about or share with us the interplay between utilities and ESCOs on the generation side of things.

 

Tim Unruh:

Yeah, that's actually a really good question because generation used to not be a part of projects at all at the beginning. Today many projects do have some measure of generation applied to them. When you think about the projects, we need to divide them into to the big and the small. So the small projects are most public buildings and those public buildings are often located in a city and they don't really have space for a generation project. When we think about generation projects that ESCOs are involved in, they're probably going to be either solar generation or combined heat and power or CHP generation. Those are the two things that we see in our projects for the most part. There's often some other things that may happen. Sometimes there's some hydropower generation in a small scale, sometimes there's some small scale wind, but for the most part it's solar and combined heat and power.

And most urban buildings don't have space for either one of those. And so they're limited to small installations that might be rooftops or parking lot type installations. And it's generally solar. However, when you go to other sites that have campuses, that would be federal sites, that could be universities, sometimes there's some state research sites that have campuses as well. Those have a conglomeration of buildings, those have space. And so we see the opportunity for larger scale solar and we see the desire at times for combined heat and power. Now the combined heat and power is a natural gas source and with the decarbonization efforts, you struggle with how that's going to fit in the future. And so my looking glass in the future doesn't quite know how those will work out, but they are still happening today and there is still interest in those today.

There is also an opportunity with the federal government, they have something called an enhanced use lease. The federal government can work with a utility through an ESCO, establish an enhanced use lease where a generation facility is built on federal land. And the reason the federal government wants that is that that generation facility will be connected to the utility providing power into the utility system for normal operation. But in case of an emergency, that local site of generation can be diverted to provide power to the federal site for national emergency and reliability and resiliency needs. Sometimes the large site, if you have an enhanced use lease, might take the steam from generation of electricity for their site use and allowed electricity to be used by the utility. That also has happened. Clearly whenever the ESCO is installing any type of generation, it has to work with the grid operators, whether that's utility or a local grid operator to work on the interface requirements, whether they're large or small, those always exist.

And I want to point out that while we talk about generation, I don't want to forget that as we see the generation portfolio change for the future and become more renewable, we know that there's new challenges with operating a fully renewable grid. Now we're nowhere near fully renewable, but as we inch closer to that, we'll see some of these challenges start to emerge and we may be relying upon the load to provide support for grid stability in the future because the load now is flexible and controllable in ways that we've never had before. And so ESCOs have a control of a substantial amount of load in many service territories, that they can provide services that are able to change the consumption, move the consumption earlier, delay it, and yet still provide their buildings what they need to operate properly. This type of technology is called Grid Enabled Efficient Buildings or GEBs, and it's a research area that Department of Energy is currently developing as well as with some of our national labs, but it's also something that ESCOs can provide as part of their service package if they work with utility.

 

Jason Price:

All right. So you opened the door with a following question. You're using language that speaks to this. Are you becoming or is there a room in the model to be an aggregator and are you selling into the wholesale market? Are there new opportunities for the ESCO market in ways you, perhaps you didn't envision only a few years ago?

 

Tim Unruh:

So it's not yet. We don't really have clear rate structure on how an owner benefits from participating in a market where their load provides some of the support for the overall system. It's not clear how that works yet. There's not really clear rate structures and we don't really have a grid that's to the point that it needs that dependency either. Our grid has not come there yet because it's still not that high a percent of renewable generation today, but I believe it's coming in the future. I think that the opportunities will be there. I think that when we look to our grid in the future, we'll see that there's a mix of support that it needs. There's certainly going to be batteries that are on the grid that provide some support. We'll probably see some use of EVs and their battery ability to provide some support, but I think we'll also see that the load will come in and shift and move to provide additional support as well so that all those together will combine to create a stable grid.

 

Jason Price:

Interesting. Tell us now about the customer experience working with ESCOs. Do you find that customers sometimes have trouble understanding the role of the ESCO and the utility relationship or how ESCOs may differ from general contractors coming to work on buildings? And most of all, what is the ESCO's relationship with the customer and does it present any noteworthy challenges or unique opportunities as you engage with them?

 

Tim Unruh:

Yeah, it's a very unique relationship. I kind of alluded to it in the very early questions when I talked about how the selection process works. The ESCO relationship is highly, it's highly relationship-based set of workings. So the ESCO remember, doesn't have a scope of work. They have to be selected based on qualifications and other references. And so the ESCOs work hard to make sure that each of their prior projects has good relationships because they use those prior relationships to help a customer in the future select them for work that they might win. The relationship is needed because the ESCO is developing a scope of work with the owner that meets the owner's needs. And sometimes owner's needs aren't always that clear. They may say, well, we think we're going to have an expansion over here, but we aren't quite sure yet. And so the ESCO tries to include that uncertainty in their design that may or may not provide savings, but they want to try to provide a project that will meet the owner's expectations through the process.

And so the scope that eventually is developed is owned by the ESCO. They have responsibility to ensure it's the right scope, but the owner has a significant input on what happens and how that proceeds. And so it requires a very strong relationship because there's a lot of cooperation involved. Back when I was at Department of Energy, we did a study to try to understand how we could get deeper energy retrofits. The General Services Administration did a fantastic job with this, and they ran through a process to try to understand what do we need to do? And in a nutshell, it came down to you need to make sure that there's trust and a relationship and there's an understanding of the risk that's shared by both parties. And if you do that, you can actually accomplish more through that trusting relationship and through that collaboration that you do at the beginning of the project.

So a general contractor process is quite different. A general contractor receives a scope of work, works up a bid, and often they will have change orders because they'll find through the process that the scope of work that was developed lacked some components. And so they'll propose a price, but that price will likely have change orders as they find that there were deficiencies in the scope of work they were provided. That is not a really relationship process. There may be a relationship developed to that, but it's not one that was developed through developing the scope together and develop a project that you both agree upon. The challenges that the ESCOs have to overcome in this clearly is the pricing clarity. So since there's not a bid where you go out and get three prices, owners often feel nervous that they're not getting the best price.

And so the ESCO then works to ensure that they show the customer the amount that the bids that they receive for the work and they will do the three-price bidding, but they also will then talk about how they'll mark up their own ESCO services in the process in a very clear and open fashion. The other side is, is guarantee certainty. The owners are often unsure, will they really get the savings and do we have the proper measurement technique to ensure that the savings are measured properly? And so those are the two things that really come together that form the uncertainties that the ESCO has to overcome. And they have to do that with that relationship that they established at the beginning.

 

Jason Price:

Certainly interesting. So talk to us about the length of the relationship because as I understand it, the ESCO role and the project lasts for the life of the or the duration of the equipment being installed. That could be 15 to 20 years. So can you talk a bit about what is going on during that time? What other role does the ESCO serve? How is it during this time that utilities may be involved during the whole long-term engagement as well? So how does that relationship look like with the client, the ESCO and the utility?

 

Tim Unruh:

Yeah, so the contracts are very long, 10, 15 to 20 years. Federal contracts can go up to 25 years. And the reason that they're so long is that it takes that long for the savings to pay back with the new equipment that was installed. Now, clearly you can't go in and put a contract together where you have a savings need that outlasts the equipment that's installed. So you have a limitation of how long the equipment will last in this piece as well, because you can't have a 50-year contract if your piece of equipment only lasts 20 years. That guarantee of savings lasts that long to ensure that the full initial loan to do this work is paid off. And the way the guarantee works is dependent on the contract with the client. Some clients opt for a significant amount of measurements that occur over the life of the contract and they want to see that data and they want to track it.

And some clients want just certain things measured throughout the life of the contract because they have a confidence of certain savings. Give you an example. If you renovate a site and you put in new lights. If you had lights that used 100 watts before and you put in a 50 watt light bulb, you know that there's 50 watts of savings there all the hours that light runs. And because the ESCO went through and put a sensor in that measured how long all the lights in your facility are on and off, you already know how long it runs and you know the wattage. And so maybe you don't want to spend your money measuring that because measurement costs money. But the boiler, however, is a variable piece of equipment and you know that little things can affect its efficiency. So maybe I want to measure that more frequently. So I put my money measuring that.

And so this guarantee of savings becomes an extension of that relationship through the life of the contract where you've decided what are the important things to measure to ensure that we get the savings. And then of course, if the savings is not met, the ESCO then has to provide a payment for that difference. The ESCOs also have the ability to provide a lot of different services. And so again, it's what the client wants. Some clients might want nothing more than the guarantee, and that's all they do. But ESCOs can provide maintenance, they provide operation, they can provide repair and replacement services. Some contracts can even go as far as find full operations where they have people in the facility, they run the facility and they provide everything that the facility might need. A new type of contract that's been going around and people have been learning about is called energy as a service.

And energy as a service effectively removes all the risk from equipment functionality from the owner, and in some cases even could provide utility risk removed from the owner where the ESCO takes on all that responsibility and just provides a bill to the owner for the heating, cooling and maybe even the lighting or other components that they have. And that's all they provide. And the owner no longer has to consider that as part of their operational needs because the ESCO has taken over that service. Utilities often get involved in the process when it comes time to review the bills and understand how the energy consumption has changed. Utility bill is almost always the first stop in understanding the facility's operation and utility is the place that that comes from. And so they'll often be involved in helping you understand that and offering suggestions on maybe new rates that might be out there because the uses has changed or possibly new ways that services could be done in the facility.

 

Jason Price:

That's really interesting, especially the energy as a service. So like a subscription model, I'm understanding it correctly. Yeah. All right, so Tim, look into the crystal ball, what's coming around the corner? What are some trends you're seeing? How will the ESCO landscape look like in the future?

 

Tim Unruh:

That energy as a service thing I just mentioned, I think it's going to grow. I think owners are specializing more in their core operations and they see the opportunity for someone else to take components of their operation away from them that they really may not have the expertise in. And that the market is developing reliable organizations that can provide that and provide a worry-free solution. So I think energy as a service will grow and we'll see more organizations wanting to outsource the energy components of their operation. I think that the grid will become more renewable and it's going to require more support from a flexible load. I think that ESCOs have a lot of control of the flexible load. And you'd mentioned it, would it be a market for ESCOs? I think that there will be a market developed for that flexible load.

I think that ESCOs will control a good portion of that because they already have it today and they'll provide that into the system. So those are the two key areas I think that we'll see growth. I think we'll continue to see growth in the traditional ESCO market with a savings-based performance contract through many years. But I think we'll see the other pieces grow as well. In other words, I think the market will grow bigger than it is today.

 

Jason Price:

Well, that's fantastic. And I must say, Tim, this really been a very interesting conversation. I've learned a ton about the ESCOs and how your organization, the NAESCO operates. So really want to appreciate your time and before we let you go, and we do want to give you the last word, we do have what's called our lightning round, which gives us an opportunity to learn a little bit more about you, the person rather than you, the professional. We have five questions. We ask you to keep each response to one word or phrase. So are you ready?

 

Tim Unruh:

I'm ready.

 

Jason Price:

All right. Morning beverage of choice.

 

Tim Unruh:

Ice tea.

 

Jason Price:

What's your dream vacation destination?

 

Tim Unruh:

Well, it's a beach with a tiki bar and I'm probably not drinking ice tea.

 

Jason Price:

What's the last book you couldn't put down or TV show or movie you couldn't stop thinking about?

 

Tim Unruh:

Well, this is a little longer than just one word. I saw a YouTube video recently about sewing machines and how they were invented. It was so fascinating. They had to change the entire way we sewed to enable a machine to do the same job. And I just was amazed at that kind of out of the box thinking to make that work and it transformed the industry.

 

Jason Price:

That sounds interesting. What's the first major splurge you'd make if you won the lottery?

 

Tim Unruh:

Well, my splurge is boring. I'd pay off my house, but then I'd take a trip to a beach with a tiki bar.

 

Jason Price:

Love it. And what we always ask all our guests is, what are you most motivated by?

 

Tim Unruh:

I like a job well done. At the end, I want to look back and I want to be happy and proud of what I did, and I want those around me to also be happy and proud with what they did.

 

Jason Price:

Very nice. Well, we say we give you the last word. Knowing that they're utility professionals and utility leaders listening in on today's conversation and learning from you about the ESCO market, what are some of those closing messages you would want them to take away?

 

Tim Unruh:

I believe that any industry should focus on what is best for their client. Sometimes there's always a race for the bottom line focus on your business and I think focus on your client will gain you a client forever and likely I think, that will translate into a stronger bottom line. That's what I like about the ESCO industry. I see my members, they're constantly working to make the best project for their client. Even when they might say, we might be able to make more money by going and doing this, they really focus on what does that client want and what do they need? Because they're focused on that long-term relationship and they believe that by having those long-term relations with their clients, it will grow their bottom line. That has really inspired me about this industry. It makes me proud to be associated with the industry. And I think that that message though, focusing on what's best for your client rather than your own business translate to every single industry that exists.

 

Jason Price:

Well, we much appreciate your insight today and I'm sure that our listeners will have questions and comments and we invite them to log on to Energycentral.com to leave these for Tim to follow up on. So until then though, thanks again for sharing your insight on today's episode of the podcast.

 

Tim Unruh:

Thanks, Jason. It was a great time.

 

Jason Price:

You can always reach Tim through the Energy Central platform. We welcome your questions and comments and we also want to give a shout out of thanks to the podcast sponsors that made today's episode possible. Thanks to West Monroe. West Monroe works with the nation's largest electric, gas, and water utilities in their telecommunication, grid modernization, and digital and workforce transformations. West Monroe brings a multidisciplinary team that blends utility, operations, and technology expertise to address modernizing aging infrastructure, advisory on transportation electrification, ADMS deployments, data and analytics and cybersecurity. And once again, I'm your host Jason Price. Plug in and stay fully charged in the discussion by hopping into the community at energycentral.com. And we'll see you next time at the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

 

About Energy Central Podcasts

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ features conversations with thought leaders in the utility sector. At least twice monthly, we connect with an Energy Central Power Industry Network community member to discuss compelling topics that impact professionals who work in the power industry. Some podcasts may be a continuation of thought-provoking posts or discussions started in the community or with an industry leader that is interested in sharing their expertise and doing a deeper dive into hot topics or issues relevant to the industry.

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ is the premiere podcast series from Energy Central, a Power Industry Network of Communities built specifically for professionals in the electric power industry and a place where professionals can share, learn, and connect in a collaborative environment. Supported by leading industry organizations, our mission is to help global power industry professionals work better. Since 1995, we’ve been a trusted news and information source for professionals working in the power industry, and today our managed communities are a place for lively discussions, debates, and analysis to take place. If you’re not yet a member, visit www.EnergyCentral.com to register for free and join over 200,000 of your peers working in the power industry.

The Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast is hosted by Jason Price, Community Ambassador of Energy Central. Jason is a Business Development Executive at West Monroe, working in the East Coast Energy and Utilities Group. Jason is joined in the podcast booth by the producer of the podcast, Matt Chester, who is also the Community Manager of Energy Central and energy analyst/independent consultant in energy policy, markets, and technology.  

If you want to be a guest on a future episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast, let us know! We’ll be pulling guests from our community members who submit engaging content that gets our community talking, and perhaps that next guest will be you! Likewise, if you see an article submitted by a fellow Energy Central community member that you’d like to see broken down in more detail in a conversation, feel free to send us a note to nominate them.  For more information, contact us at [email protected]. Podcast interviews are free for Expert Members and professionals who work for a utility.  We have package offers available for solution providers and vendors. 

Happy listening, and stay tuned for our next episode! Like what you hear, have a suggestion for future episodes, or a question for our guest? Leave a note in the comments below.

All new episodes of the Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast will be posted to the relevant Energy Central community group, but you can also subscribe to the podcast at all the major podcast outlets, including: