Delivering PAYS®/Inclusive Utility Investment Programs at Utility Scale.
We design and implement cost effective PAYS® and Inclusive Utility Investment programs that allow utilities to securely invest in energy efficiency upgrades in customers' homes without the need for loan servicing, filing liens, or even for their customers to take on personal debt.
Location-Based Recovery
Recover capital through the metered location rather than the individual customer, ensuring the program remains stable across ownership and occupancy changes. By tying the tariff to the service address, utilities facilitate a seamless transition of both the recovery charge and the equipment benefits between owners and renters. This location-based model secures long-term revenue and investment protection without credit checks or personal debt.
Predictable Bills
PAYS® investment logic is built on stability, capping utility investments at 80% of estimated 15-year energy savings. While specific projects may require a customer co-pay, participants consistently pay far less than retail rates by going through the program. This manageable structure best ensures at least bill neutrality is the outcome, while providing a clear, low-risk path to full utility investment cost recovery.
Energy Equity
Inclusive Utility Investment programs offered alongside traditional rebate programs provide tenants or owners at any income level—a realistic pathways to vital and often expensive energy efficiency equipment upgrades. This framework ensures broad access to public incentives across the community while boosting grid efficiency throughout the provider’s service area.
Regulatory Oversight
Regulators need to have clear visibility into how PAYS® and Inclusive Utility Investment capital recovery and consumer protection's function. EEtility's data tracking capabilities to support these programs enables regulators to access this level of transparency and supports just and reasonable rates, simplifying the review, approval, and oversight process for regulators.
Consumer Protection
Consumer safeguards include securing investment recovery at the metered site rather than the individual, allowing energy efficient upgrades opportunities to be agnostic to a participant’s financial standing. Workmanship warranties (PAYS® ) apply throughout the cost recovery term as well allowing participants to benefit from these unique program protections without personal debt or credit checks—security rarely seen in conventional market financing.
Auditable Performance
Program economics are grounded in 12 months of historical energy use at metered locations alongside estimated energy savings to come from specific upgrades. With clear documentation of costs, benefits, and bill impacts, this creates an auditable record regulator can use to evaluate prudence, cost-effectiveness, and ongoing consumer outcomes
Utility Advantages
PAYS® and Inclusive Utility Investment programs leverage a utility's unique tariff authority to recover energy efficiency investments made at metered locations over time by placing a fixed tariff charge to the meter, that survives homeowner or renter changes When designed well, by ensuring that annual investment recovery charges are 20% below the estimated annual savings, these programs are delivering immediate net benefits to participants while providing utilities with a secure, long-term capital recovery mechanism that reaches nearly all rate payers. This approach reduces the risks associated with traditional loan-based models, eliminates credit checks and property liens, significantly expands customer uptake rates and delivers quantifiable and significant grid impact when designed for utility scale.
ABOUT US
Since 2013, EEtility has designed and run inclusive energy efficiency programs for utilities of every size, earning a national reputation as a leader in Inclusive Utility Investment (IUI) built on the Energy Efficiency Institute's Pay As You Save® (PAYS®) system.
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In 2023 we took a decade of hard-won operational lessons and started building the technology to let any utility, anywhere, launch and run an IUI/PAYS program alongside its existing rebates.
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Here's the model. The utility invests in high-efficiency HVAC and water heating on the customer side of the meter. It recovers 100% of that investment through a fixed charge tied to the meter, capped at 80% of estimated savings over 15 years. No credit checks, no loans, no liens, no personal debt. Customers are cash flow positive from day one, and when they move, the charge stays with the property.
At scale, that means tens of millions of upgraded homes and businesses, lower bills, less peak demand, fewer emissions, and billions of dollars flowing into local economies. High-efficiency equipment stops being a privilege and becomes the default.
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Efficiency is power. We're ready to scale it. Are you?
PAYS®/IUI Resources
Curated public resources on PAYS® / Inclusive Utility Investment for utilities, regulators, agencies, and advocates who want to see how these programs work in practice.
Utility Resources
Case studies, presentations, and tools from utilities that have implemented PAYS® / Inclusive Utility Investment, highlighting adoption, performance, and lessons learned.
Regulatory Resources
Key dockets, orders, and testimony that show how commissions have evaluated and approved PAYS® / Inclusive Utility Investment programs across different jurisdictions.
