Waltham, MA – The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) announced that Mass Save® has received an Exemplary Energy Efficiency Program award for its Commercial and Industrial Water Heater Initiative in Massachusetts.
The Commercial and Industrial Water Heater Initiative was recognized for its effectiveness in expanding the market acceptance of high efficiency natural gas equipment. Distributors are able to sell a variety of hot water heaters with the Mass Save discount already factored into the price, instead of offering a post-purchase rebate. This encourages the distributors to keep the equipment in-stock and readily available for commercial customers.
The program also includes education and outreach to distributors on the equipment benefits, including energy cost savings and reliability. In the first two and a half years of the initiative, 40 water heater distributors were enrolled, more than 3,000 customers were reached, and more than 3.3 million gross annual therms of natural gas was saved – outperforming similar programs across the United States by more than 2,000 percent.
The program is provided by the Mass Save® Sponsors, which include Berkshire Gas, Blackstone Gas Company, Cape Light Compact, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, Eversource, Liberty Utilities, National Grid and Unitil.
ACEEE’s national review evaluates utilities across the country and recognizes exemplary programs for direct customer energy savings, cost effectiveness, market impacts, customer service, innovation, and transferability/replicability and expansion potential.
