Energy Management Systems for Buildings are Booming

[kristopher]

4. That is quite a bit different than your first assertion.

You wrote of abuse by sales contractors - a deliberate manipulation by for profit entities that defeats the entire purpose of energy efficiency programs. I'm not disagreeing that this is a real problem, I just thought (hoped) you might have more to back it up than your personal observations.

It is really difficult to design programs that are greed-proof and i'm always interested in studies that address the problem. For example, if a state gives a homeowner rebate for, say, geothermal systems but the neighboring states do not, you'll find that the price of geothermal systems in the state with the rebate will start to climb in relation to those states with no rebate. That's why homeowner tax credits are popular; it is more difficult for a contractor to capture the value of that since it is a deferred reward.