ABSTRACT
The development of energy service contracting offers energy officials at all levels of government a flexible and potentially far-reaching vehicle for accelerating the adoption of energy conservation technology. Planned cuts in federal support for technical and financial assistance programs for building owners further emphasize the importance of energy service contracting. This chapter aims to serve as an introduction to energy service contracting and to state government activities in the field. It describes the major forms of performance contracting, its typical applications, and its advantages and limitations from the energy user's point of view. The chapter also describes some of the major problems impeding the adoption of performance contracting among various sectors of energy users and the development of the industry as a whole. State governments have developed many different kinds of quasi-public authorities to channel capital into particular economic activities deemed beneficial to the public welfare -- housing production, hospital construction, industrial real estate development.
