Problem
A top 10 North American retail giant wanted to leverage rebates and incentives to improve energy efficiency across their portfolio but lacked the expertise and capacity to deliver.
A household name in the US and Canada, this retailer has more than 2,000 big-box stores. Their strategic vision was to utilize rebates and incentives in order to offset the cost of upgrading interior and exterior lighting to LED, and HVAC equipment to higher efficiency, across their portfolio. The task of identifying and securing rebates across hundreds of sites for multiple upgrade initiatives would be complex and resource-intensive.
In addition to securing rebates, the company also needed guidance about which stores should be included and how installation schedules should be prioritized in order to maximize the financial return for each initiative.
Since they lacked the expertise and capacity to effectively manage the equipment upgrades and the rebates, they were concerned they might sacrifice financial return and also spread internal resources too thin.
Solution
The company decided to outsource rebate identification and management to a third-party provider.
With minimal understanding of how to maximize rebates for large initiatives, and overwhelmed by the administrative burden, the company decided to outsource the rebate management.
As part of an RFP process, bid’s rebates team proposed an implementation strategy that instilled confidence in our capabilities and ultimately led to a multi-year partnership with bid for rebate management across all projects.
Key opportunities identified were:
- Leverage domain knowledge to identify an implementation schedule which would maximize the ROIs for their LED and HVAC
- Streamline the process of submitting and expediting hundreds of rebate
- Provide peace of mind the process would be managed on time, and on
- Manage the process to ensure the initiative delivers maximum financial returns, with minimal disruption to installation
Outcome
Bid’s Rebates team guided site selection and installation schedules, helping the retailer earn more than $15M in rebates for 370 projects across 36 states.
Bid’s expert guidance created an incremental seven figures of rebate dollars over the original projection by swapping out ineligible sites for sites that qualified for large rebates.
Bid minimized the administrative burden for the retailer by working directly with their equipment & installation vendors in order to secure rebate pre-approvals while keeping the installation schedules on track.
Before
- The retailer wanted to improve energy efficiency and maximize their return on
- With locations in all 50 States and parts of Canada, and across hundreds of rebate programs, identifying and securing incentives was a daunting task.
- The retailer lacked the internal rebate expertise and capacity to effectively plan the implementation and did not want to sacrifice ROI by spreading internal resources too.
After
- Bid’s experience and expertise was leveraged to develop a robust implementation strategy that ensured all projects would deliver the best financial returns.
- Administrative burden was avoided by the as bid managed all facets of the rebate.
- More than $15 million of rebates has been reserved and/or secured, with much more expected as the project continues.
If you would like to know more about our Utility Rebates download the fact sheet here
