360° PERSPECTIVE ON DEEP ENERGY RETROFITS

The GSA's National Deep Energy Retrofit (NDER) program demonstrated that deep energy retrofits can achieve significantly higher savings than typical federal projects, with 10 GSA ESPC projects averaging 38% savings compared to 21% in other agencies. A stakeholder workshop identified key barriers in project delivery, team dynamics, integrative design, operations and maintenance (O&M), and project economics. Recommended improvements include transitioning to whole-building performance contracts for O&M and combining energy efficiency contracts with appropriated renovation funds to incentivize deeper savings.

• Deep energy retrofits in GSA's Energy Saving Performance Contract (ESPC) projects have significantly outperformed other federal government agency projects, achieving an average of 38% savings compared to 21% across 33 other agency projects.
• The GSA identified several administrative best practices to streamline the retrofit process and increase savings, including the use of centralized contracting reviews to ensure faster and more consistent review time frames.
• There is a significant opportunity to increase savings by transitioning operations and maintenance (O&M) from per-equipment or per-system contracts to whole-building performance contracts, as O&M savings can be equal to or greater than energy cost savings.
• Stakeholders identified barriers to the adoption of innovative technologies, noting that Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) are often reluctant to propose new solutions due to fears of causing project delays.
• To improve project economics, the workshop explored combining ESPCs with appropriated renovation funds, suggesting the creation of a project manager role to coordinate between ESCOs and renovation contractors or the use of partnership agreements to combine contracts.

APA

RMI (n.d.). 360° PERSPECTIVE ON DEEP ENERGY RETROFITS. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2014-27_360PerspectiveonFederalDeepEnergyRetrofits-ExecSummary.pdf

Chicago

RMI. 360° PERSPECTIVE ON DEEP ENERGY RETROFITS. n.d. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2014-27_360PerspectiveonFederalDeepEnergyRetrofits-ExecSummary.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=360° PERSPECTIVE ON DEEP ENERGY RETROFITS |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2014-27_360PerspectiveonFederalDeepEnergyRetrofits-ExecSummary.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmind360, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{360° PERSPECTIVE ON DEEP ENERGY RETROFITS}}, institution = {RMI}, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_2014-27_360PerspectiveonFederalDeepEnergyRetrofits-ExecSummary.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }