Milestones:

2006 Q2 Report

2006 Q3 Report

2006 Q4 Report

2007 Q1 Report

2007 Q2 Report

Food Service

FSE Distributor Site Visits

On Bill Financing

Small Business Public Goods Fund Awareness

2006-2009 SB-Cal Energy Efficiency Market Transformation Program

Welcome !  This SB-Cal page will provide a continuing progress report on our work on the project below.  SB-Cal will be working as described below, to develop energy efficiency opportunities that will in turn improve the profitability for:

• Food service businesses and departments within businesses,

• California small businesses with access to capital needs.

• California small businesses as ratepayers contributing to the Public Goods Charge funds*

*California small businesses pay a portion of their energy bills, along with other utility ratepayers, the costs to fund over $2B in 2006-08 energy efficiency funds  programs   

Please contact Hank Ryan at 510-459-9683 or via email at hryan@smallbusinesscalifornia.org if you have any questions or suggestions.

 EPA Grant Deliverables

          SB-Cal Work Plan for 2006-2009 EPA Grant

*(Please note:  The language below was approved in June of 2005 for this grant.  In the interim prior to the June 2006 final grant award from EPA, some conditions have changed or advanced.  The work will follow the intent of the original deliverables outlined above and every effort will be made to take advantage of opportunities these emerging developments now offer.

1.    Energy Efficient Commercial Food Service Equipment Distributor Education and Leasing:  Current California statewide small business rebate programs offer substantial amounts as rebates for energy efficient connectionless steamers and hot food holding cabinets.  The track record for these efforts is very limited, partly due to the current unawareness of food service distributors of the existence of these programs, but mainly, as this writer, a former restaurant owner knows from experience, due to first cost/cash flow issues.  There is also still a low level of recognition by the food service industry of the sales value of efficiency as it relates to food service equipment.  SBCal is in the process of building a replicable way for food service distributors to take advantage of existing rebate funds by utilizing these monies toward buying down the normal lease financing cost percentages.

·        Starting with one food service distributor on the Central California coast, combined with a bank based leasing firm willing to work with the high risk food service business segment, SBCal is working to roll out a subsidized (using Pacific Gas & Electric food service rebate funds in the statewide 2005 Express Efficiency Program), food service leasing program that acts to educate food service sales personnel regarding the value of energy efficiency.  The second food service distributor will be located in the San Diego Gas & Electric service territory and the third within the Southern California Edison service territory.  (UPDATE: This leasing effort is not on the front burner as of 9/13//2006 as the larger issue of rebates not being applied for by many purchasers of qualified energy efficient FS equipment pre-empts re-directing those funds.  SB-Cal is working on developing rebate facilitation servicing concepts that may help to address rebate "breakage" where CA IOUs will not get proper credit for encouraging energy efficient FS equipment purchases.)

·        The PG&E sponsored Food Service Technology Center is assisting in this effort by providing both empirical savings results from efficient food service equipment installations, as well as by offering seminars that focus on energy efficiency branding values to commercial food service equipment distributor sales personnel.

2.     On Bill Financing:  California has been very reliant during the past few years on using utility rebate programs that provide from 80-100% of costs for small business energy investments.  These high level rebate programs haven’t been able to stimulate true investments, for the most part, from the small business community.  Moreover, traditional small business programs have been used to mainly take advantage of the “low hanging fruit” like screw in compact fluorescent lamps while creating serious lost opportunities because other efficiency investments with higher costs and/or longer payback times are not bundled in a comprehensive manner that mitigates these investment barriers. Finally, high rebates spread Public Purpose Program (PPP), fund dollars over a smaller number of businesses, limiting the potential effectiveness of these funds. 

·        Working together with the Washington based Center for Small Business and the Environment, the current 501-c3 non-profit organization at the forefront of a year long campaign to influence the California Public Utility Commission and California Investor Owner and Municipal utilities to emulate the award winning Small Business Energy Advantage program operated by the investor owned United Illuminating based in New Haven, Connecticut, SBCal will continue to offer assistance to  San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and Southern California Gas towards developing effective and cost-efficient OBF Pilot programs. (Pacific Gas & Electric has committed to offering business financing as well, using a third party lender.)

·         These efforts will focus on assisting the above three out of four California utilities who have committed to developing successful Pilot programs so that investor owned and municipal utilities in other parts of California and in other interested states like Nevada can follow with their own programs.  Working in cooperation with several Publicly Owned Energy Service Providors, SBCal will work to develop a California Municipal Utility sponsored APPA grant application that seeks to deliver a replicable OBF template for municipal utilities around the country. (Update: These discussions have been taking place at several POUs and the current target for applying for funding assistance from APPA or other entities is likely 4Q/2006 or 1Q/2007.)

3.  Public Goods Charge Fund Awareness Campaign:  Most small businesses in California are not aware that, as do utility ratepayers in several other states, they pay each month into a “Public Purpose Fund” (PPP), which is a line item on their gas and electric bills.  At a Small Business Roundtable organized by CA Senator Michael Machado at UC Davis on April 22^nd, 2005, a “breakout session” of 12 participating small business owners was polled to determine how many were aware of the “PPP” line item they each contributed to on their energy bills.  Not one participant was aware they were paying into this fund designed to support energy efficiency programs. For example, a small restaurant with a $1050 monthly electric bill in San Francisco pays $41 into this fund as part of the total bill.  Over 5 years, that restaurant pays almost $2500 into this fund, at that rate. Our basic premise is that heightened awareness of PPP funds will translate into more small businesses becoming interested in getting the best return on their investment.  This idea is borne from the practices of most efficiency program field personnel of informing individual businesses in face to face encounters that the incentives they are offering are not a “gift”, but a direct function of the business paying into PPP funds.   SBCal will develop several individual and collaborative methods to alert California small businesses regarding the fact that they pay into this fund every month they can act to invest their portion (meaning effectively using offered programs), of these funds towards energy efficiency improvements.