Houghton College had a number of exciting energy projects on campus prior to engaging the team at 5. These projects were driven by their commitment to sustainability and featured a campus-wide LED lighting retrofit project, a 2.6 MW solar array and other initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint. 5 was able to partner with Houghton College’s sustainability and finance teams to put all of the pieces together into a comprehensive strategy for energy procurement and demand-side management.

New York City passed a set of laws under the Climate Mobilization Act to transition New York toward clean electricity and drastically lower Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. This new legislation intends to counter the threat of climate change and involves four local laws which require:

A big-box retailer in Mexico with more than 400 locations was evaluating purchasing options without a centralized strategy or decision-maker for a large electricity load, more than 600,000 MWhs per year. Their inefficiency and confusion, coupled with their inexperience about the regulatory market framework, led the company’s CFO to engage 5 to advise the client through their procurement process.

A major New York City medical center originally engaged 5’s Luthin Associates team to review low-cost power options under the New York Power Authority’s (NYPA) Power for Jobs program (now known as ReCharge New York), which saved this client more than $3 million compared to market rates over the life of the award. Luthin Associates provided management and oversight of the entire process which included issuing rebate checks, on-going bill reviews, and acting as a liaison between NYPA and the client to ensure compliance with program requirements. The successful nature of this engagement prompted the medical center’s financial executives and operations team to expand its relationship with Luthin Associates to find additional ways to lower its energy-related expenses.

Luthin Associates was involved in negotiating a Power Purchasing Agreement (PPA) that helped a well-established New York City University build the largest solar system installed in New York City. The 3.1-megawatt solar collection will offset a significant share of the electricity used by this university and its sister school located in the Bronx. This project is in support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s clean energy goal authorizing 50% of electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2030.

Luthin Associates partnered with a host of other firms and ConEdison in the NY Prize competition, a first-in-the-nation challenge to help communities create microgrids.

A microgrid is a standalone energy system that is capable of operating on its own in the event of a power outage. One purpose of the project is to create a network of users who rely on the same microgrid. This community of microgrids will allow for local power generation using clean and efficient energy sources including, but not limited to, wind, solar, and combined heat and power (CHP).

A major university approached Luthin Associates to develop a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% over a ten-year period. Luthin worked directly with facilities, financial services, students, and faculty to create a sustainability committee. The committee developed a Whole Health Energy Plan that would enable the customer to meet its goals and increase the sustainability of its campuses, which comprised more than 40 buildings and over 3 million square feet.

After conducting a benchmarking study for a chain of hardware stores, 5 found that one of the client’s locations used considerably more energy per square foot than any of their other stores.