Like for many businesses, end of year is a busy time at Groom Energy.   Our engineering team is scrambling to satisfy utilities’ requirements, our back office is beginning year-end closing and our customers are pushing us to complete projects with budgets that disappear if unused.

Last week we had our year-end team meeting, reviewing 2013 and discussing our draft 2014 business plans.  We brainstormed about energy efficiency market trends and came up with three things to watch for in 2014 – one economic, one application and one fun, futuristic idea.

This week I attended a USGBC hosted discussion on PACE financing held in downtown Boston.  Based just on Massachusetts Senator Brian Joyce’s opening remarks attendees got the clear impression that PACE is on a roll again…

A few weeks ago one of our thoughtful engineers sent me a note wondering aloud about the correlation of sustainability-minded companies to above average stock price performance.   Like others with an environmental bias he hoped to feel good about buying shares in publicly traded, relatively greener companies while still making a strong financial return (and further driving down the cost of capital for these same companies.)

As we do each spring, this week a team of Groom Energy engineers made the pilgrimage to Lightfair in search of “the next big thing” in lighting.  We went to training sessions, walked the exhibit floor and talked with smart folks to develop a collective view of what’s going on, what’s hot and what’s not.

Harvard economist Robert Stavins recently published a study assessing the impact when US cities require their real estate owners to perform periodic energy analysis on their buildings.  As Boston considers passing its own energy benchmarking ordinance, Stavin studied other existing programs and concluded “there is currently no real evidence that these mandatory programs lead to any changes whatsoever in energy use.’’

During building energy assessments we often find obvious, no-cost behavior changes savings:   A compressor running flat-out for an idled production line.   Flood lights illuminating an unused parking lot all year long.  Warehouse dock doors that stay open all day.   Our very technical recommendations come with a smiley face:

Over the last year we’ve participated in an increasing number of interviews, conferences and panels discussing the energy-efficiency finance market, including commercial PACE and on-bill repayment programs.  Awareness is high, with many policy, government and utility executives generally convinced that if low-cost capital were more readily available, energy-efficiency adoption across residential, institutional, government and commercial/industrial markets would surge.

If you weren’t one of last night’s 100+ million Superbowl viewers, by now you’ve probably heard that a stadium wide power outage stalled the game for 34 minutes.

So the fiscal cliff drama has resolved itself temporarily, with both solar and wind incentives living on for another year…