Guidehouse Insights Leaderboard: Energy Service Companies

In a rapidly evolving energy landscape, energy service companies (ESCOs) have witnessed rapid advances over the past five years and are now expanding their scope beyond their traditional energy efficiency solutions and guaranteed savings performance contracts. To succeed in today’s energy management landscape, ESCOs need diverse contracting and financial mechanisms to facilitate seamless installations and solutions for their clients. One notable trend driving this transformation is the increasing demand for onsite distributed energy resources for enhanced resilience. ESCOs recognize the importance of being prepared in the face of unpredictable grid conditions and are actively recommending and incorporating onsite energy generation and storage for their clients. Moreover, ESCOs now provide expert guidance on sustainability practices to assist their clients in achieving their sustainability goals and aligning with sustainable framework requirements. The concept of energy as a service (EaaS) has gained significant traction in the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector, and has allowed C&I clients to focus on their core business activities while outsourcing their energy needs.

Although some ESCO market leaders have historically gained notoriety through their legacy energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs), only through constant market adaptation and diversification of their contracting and financial mechanisms have they remained market leaders in today’s energy landscape. The gap between ESCO market leaders and other companies is widening as some ESCOs innovate beyond efficiency solutions while others play catch-up in developing comprehensive, integrated technology and financing capabilities.

This Guidehouse Insights Leaderboard ranks 11 leading ESCO market incumbents on their ability to innovate and increase technology and financing options available to clients, through traditional performance contracts as well as other contracting mechanisms. Guidehouse Insights uses a proprietary Leaderboard methodology to profile, rate, and rank ESCOs with the goal of providing an objective assessment of their relative strengths and weaknesses in the ESCO market. These players are rated on 10 criteria: Vision; Go-to-Market Strategy; Partnerships; Technology; Geographic Reach; Sales, Marketing, and Distribution; Depth of ESCO Offerings; Project Portfolio; Financing; and Staying Power.

Top 10 Vendors

1. Schneider Electric

2. Johnson Controls

3. Ameresco

4. Siemens

5. Honeywell

6. Trane

7. NORESCO

8. Constellation

9. Enel X

10. McKinstry