About a year after The Ohio State University (OSU) asked interested companies to submit qualifications for managing the school’s energy systems in exchange for a long-term lease (see our March 5, 2015 blog post), the university has decided “the idea . . . has enough merit to go forward with seeking bids,” The Columbus Dispatch reports. University leaders see the plan as “a way to secure a large up-front payment that could support university programs, while improving the university’s energy efficiency, by requiring any potential partner to invest in better and greener technology,” according to the article. Officials from OSU said in an email that they will start “defining the details of a possible ‘comprehensive energy management plan’ and, within a few months, issue a formal request for proposals.” Of the forty-four companies that responded to the original request for qualifications, forty were deemed qualified (see our July 3, 2015 blog post). Ten teams responded to the next request for information on how they would partner would the university on the plan; each of those pledged to meet the goal of reducing OSU’s energy usage by 25 percent within 10 years.
OSU moving ahead with plan to outsource its energy management
