Client Name: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Project Name: Building the Cambridge, MA Energy Alliance: Initiating Regional Energy Alliances
Project Description:
In 2007 in Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick, Mayor Thomas Menino, Cambridge City Manager Bob Healy, Secretary of Energy & Environment Ian Bowles, and NSTAR (now Eversource) CEO Tom May announced their sponsorship of a new solution to the challenges of energy cost and reliability, environmental stress, and job creation – the city-based “Energy Alliance.” CESI secured grants from the Henry P. Kendall Foundation to form the corporation and provide support for its operations over several years. The Cambridge Energy Alliance has since been absorbed into City operations.
In Cincinnati two years later, an entrepreneurial group decided to pattern a Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) after the CEA model, and asked CESI’s assistance. In 2010, CESI prepared two proposals to US DOE under their new “Better Buildings” grant program—one for $20 million for the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA), and the second for $17 million to GCEA. Both were awarded (two of only five non-government winners).
GCEA and SEEA then engaged CESI to provide Organizational Development, Market Characterization, Financing Options, Workforce Development, Contractor Evaluations, and other technical support services in their early years.
Relevant Expertise: Enterprise Building, State Energy Programs
