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Powerful marketing techniques
by Ward Lowe As Californians dust off their solar panels, wind vanes, and candles for the start of the electricity-gobbling summer-cooling–a.k.a. rolling blackout–season, fears about shrinking power supplies and rising electricity prices build across the country. With these fears in mind, real estate professionals and building owners, struggling to fill the vacancies produced by the economic slowdown, are emphasizing buildings’ power-saving features and participating in energy reviews to attract tenants to their commercial spaces.
Rather than the latest high-tech communications infrastructure, brokers focus prospective tenants’ attention on skylights that reduce lighting needs and may prove invaluable in a blackout. Others praise the flexibility and seasonal cost-savings of leasing space in an older building that has windows that actually open. Neither brokers nor potential tenants see these features as crucial selling points; however, with fears of skyrocketing utility bills and uncertain energy supplies in many areas, these small but positive features can add up and provide additional reasons for a client to sign a lease.
To get an objective and very visible seal of approval for a building’s energy efficiency, owners and brokers are checking out the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program. Through its benchmarking system, the EPA compares similar commercial buildings and rates them on the basis of energy performance. Those buildings that score in the top 25% in terms of energy performance receive a plaque to display and are added to a registry of Energy Star buildings.
The EPA also partners with builders to construct Energy Star homes, which are 30% more energy efficient than comparable houses. Currently, 27 Texas builders participate in the program. Utilities and other homebuilders not only rate homes for energy efficiency; some guarantee the cost of electric bills.
Builders involved with Tucson Electric Power Company’s (TEP) Guarantee program consult with TEP on new-home designs and agree to inspections by the utility while the homes are under construction. In exchange, TEP provides flat heating and cooling costs to homebuyers. Other homebuilders independently guarantee utility costs. Again, the builders construct homes to certain energy-efficient specifications and, relying on research and experience, promise buyers heating and cooling costs for the length of a contract.
This wave of electricity-conscious programs and sales techniques may be sweeping the nation, but Texas consumers this year shouldn’t expect to experience power shortages. Analysts predict that the state’s power-generating capacity exceeds this summer’s anticipated peak demand, and 27 new generation plants are under construction. In addition, Texas’ electric grid has very few links to the rest of the country, so other regions’ power crises shouldn’t drain the state’s juice. But although Texans won’t soon hear bleak power scenarios like are forecast for other areas of the country, brokers, owners, tenants, and builders can only benefit from the energy-saving features of a property. Just because electricity is plentiful doesn’t mean that people want to use–and pay for–more of it than they must.
Photo © Corbis Stock Market.
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