Mayor Tim Keller of the City of Albuquerque recently announced a new initiative to get businesses around town to commit to reducing their energy expenditure by 20% over the next five years. The Mayor’s Energy Challenge, the new initiative, provides small businesses who sign up with tools and resources to help them reduce their energy expenditure.

As an Energy Services Company, Yearout Energy understands how important cutting energy usage can be for businesses of all sizes. Although we focus on contracting for energy savings through facilities improvements for larger organizations with big campuses to maintain, we think the Mayor’s Energy Challenge is an excellent place to start for small businesses. Here are a few reasons why.

Cutting Energy Expenditures Means Saving Money

The obvious benefit of cutting energy expenditures is that it means you have a smaller utility bill. At Yearout Energy, our entire business is based on providing improvements to facilities that are paid for by the money saved through the reduction of energy usage. Cutting your energy expenses by 20% can save, even a small business, thousand of dollars every year. The overall impact on our community environment saves us money in the long run as well, often in unexpected ways, such as reducing healthcare costs for lung illnesses and other ailments.

Getting Tools to Track Energy Expenditures Can Help Immensely

One of the biggest services Yearout Energy provides to our customers is Utility Management. This service includes tracking energy usage over time and looking for issues like irregularities or areas that use more energy than expected, and then fixing them. For example, our process has been valuable in identifying billing errors in utility bills for large companies that were costing them tens of thousands of dollars each year. We’ve also been able to identify facilities or services within businesses that were using energy at higher rates than others, and tracked down ways to cut those expenditures. Knowing where your energy expenditures are is one of the most important aspects of energy management.

The Mayor’s Energy Challenge includes a commitment to tracking energy usage in a similar manner to our Utility Management service. This sort of commitment can be a great starting point for a small business to identify and manage energy issues in their facilities. The Mayor’s Energy Challenge is providing free tools to help small businesses track their energy usage, including how to create a Green Team, which can give small and medium businesses a real advantage. 

SMBs Get Help Finding Financing

At Yearout Energy, our enterprise clients fund their improvements through Guaranteed Energy Savings Performance Contracts (GESPCs). These contracts pay for the improvements based on the expected energy savings. Unfortunately, the requirements for applying for a GESPC are out of reach for many small and medium businesses in Albuquerque, even though they could benefit from the services. For small and medium businesses, the Mayor’s Energy Challenge provides support through financing with credit union partners.

Overall, the Mayor’s Energy Challenge is a great option for small and medium businesses in Albuquerque that would like to improve their energy costs, reduce their carbon footprint, and make a better working environment for their employees. If you own or run a small or medium business, sign up for the challenge here. If you are part of a larger enterprise organization that would like more information on how Yearout Energy can help you reduce your energy expenditures outside of the Mayor’s Energy Challenge, get in touch!