New ESPC playbook now live

  • Published
  • By J. Brian Garmon
The Air Force Civil Engineer Center's Energy Directorate recently went live with a new playbook for Energy Savings Performance Contracts, or ESPCs, replacing Engineering Technical Letter 13-13.

This interactive web-based tool, located on the CE Portal, is a hub for ESPC best practices and direction, helping installations better navigate through the complex process to a successful contract award.

“The new playbook contains a basic history of the ESPC program, primary roles and responsibilities, step-by-step instructions, job aids and reference documents,” said Mike Giniger, the Air Force Subject Matter Expert on ESPCs. “Its objective is to provide parameters and guidance used by the Air Force to implement an ESPC.”

Requirements in the ESPC Playbook are mandatory, and any deviations require written approval from the ESPC program manager, Air Force Civil Engineer Center and the Energy Program Development Division. The playbook applies to all ESPC work.

The ESPC program allows the Air Force to implement infrastructure improvements with no up-front capital expenditures. In an ESPC, an Energy Services Company, or ESCO, designs, constructs, implements, operates, maintains and arranges the necessary funding of improvements that reduce energy and water consumption and promote the use of renewable energy technologies. ESPCs improve energy performance while addressing aging infrastructure concerns and reducing consumption through a budget-neutral approach for the Air Force.

During the past three years, AFCEC has been committed to meeting its $450 million share of the presidential performance contracting challenge.

“Some of the solicitations were successful and others were not, but we captured the lessons learned and put them into this new playbook,” said Mike Ringenberg, ESPC program manager.

This playbook is written for all Air Force personnel involved with the ESPCs, ESCOs and contracting offices.

“Although we have created this playbook to include all ESPC nuances, you can still contact anyone on our team to get live support,” said Les Martin, AFCEC’s Program Development division chief.”

If you find any errors or would like to suggest an edit to this playbook, users may submit a CE Portal request to address a Playbook content question or provide suggestions for improvement. All CE Portal requests for a playbook are checked with the playbook content owners for approval or incorporation.