When your clients ask about lighting retrofits, HVAC upgrades, or utility rebates, they're asking — but they're not asking you. They're asking the specialty firm down the street, and the revenue is going there. Energy Efficiency Advisory pulls that revenue line into your workspace, alongside the procurement relationship you already own.
Commercial customers are spending more on energy efficiency upgrades than they ever have. Lighting, HVAC, controls, building envelope — there's a multi-billion-dollar advisory market built around helping them do it right. Most of that work is going to specialty firms because brokers traditionally don't play here. That's a missed adjacency, not an inability.
Your client mentions they're thinking about an LED retrofit. You don't have an answer beyond "talk to a contractor." The customer talks to a contractor. The contractor's firm becomes the trusted energy advisor. You become the rate guy.
Every state and utility has efficiency rebate programs. Most are under-claimed because the paperwork is brutal and the eligibility rules shift quarterly. Your clients qualify for thousands they're not capturing — and someone could be capturing it on their behalf.
Procurement margins are thin and getting thinner. Efficiency advisory margins are 3-5x healthier. Same client, deeper engagement, better unit economics. Brokers who only sell rates are working harder for less.
Pulling efficiency advisory in-house — through the same workspace that already holds your customer book — turns a referred-out conversation into a captured revenue line. Same trust, same data, expanded service.
Customer asks about a retrofit, you have the answer. Same workspace, same relationship, deeper conversation. Fewer reasons for them to find another advisor.
Procurement is a thin-margin volume business. Efficiency advisory is a high-margin specialty business. Add the second to the first and the brokerage's economics change.
Clients who get procurement AND efficiency from one firm don't shop the procurement piece for a 0.0005 ¢/kWh saving. The relationship outweighs the rate sheet.
We're thinking about what an efficiency advisory module looks like, layered onto Switchboard. The shape isn't locked yet. Below is the rough surface area — your conversations with us shape the priorities.
Structured forms for capturing facility data, equipment inventories, and operational profiles. The starting line of any efficiency engagement, formalized.
Active rebate programs by utility and state, refreshed quarterly. Match qualifying upgrades to claimable incentives. The work that nobody wants to do, automated.
Project-level financial models for retrofits — capital cost, annual savings, payback, NPV. Customer-facing reports with your firm's branding.
Curated network of contractors. RFP-style bidding for retrofit work. The procurement playbook applied to project work.
Energy Efficiency Advisory is on the Gridient horizon — a direction we're heading, not a release calendar. The order we build in depends on the conversations our partners are having today. If this matters to your business, the way to influence the timeline is to talk to us.
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