Local Government Energy Audit Program

1.       Who are the pre-qualified auditing firms?

The firms and their contact information can be found in Appendix A of the Guidelines and Application Forms packet or on the NJCEP website, www.NJCleanEnergy.com/LGEA. The current list of pre-qualified firms includes:

In order to participate in the NJCEP Local Government Energy Audit Program and to receive its incentives, you must send your RFP to ALL pre-qualified firms; if you have extenuating circumstances relating to this, feel free to contact us. You may not have a non-listed firm perform the audit. 

Yes, you can withdraw your RFP before you’ve awarded it to an auditing firm without repercussion.

The New Jersey Department of Treasury conducted a competitive bidding process to pre-qualify the five energy auditing firms for this program, specifically so that local governments would not have to advertise their RFPs. 

There’s no straightforward answer to this. Energy audit pricing is extremely dependent on the type of facilities you have, quantity, square footage, and energy consuming processes or equipment. Prices can range anywhere from $.10/sq ft to $.70/sq ft. Since this is difficult to estimate, you may want to send out an RFP for all your facilities to determine the cost for each. You can remove facilities from the scope of work once you receive the actual price quotes in the proposals. 

No. You must spend equal to or more than 25% of the cost of the audit on recommended energy saving measures. This amount is your “out-of-pocket cost,” so it’s the amount the measures cost minus any other NJCEP incentives you might receive.

Yes. Street lighting is eligible, but your particular usage will determine if this is truly cost effective. Please contact us prior to including street lighting in an RFP. 

The auditing firms are required to present their quotes as all-inclusive cost per facility, using pre-negotiated hourly rates. This means you should receive a price for each facility, and NO OTHER PRICES. This cost should include (but is not limited to): travel expenses, per diem, overhead, fee or profit, clerical support, safety equipment, materials, supplies, managerial support and all documents, forms, and reproductions. Proposals that show other expenses or fees will be considered as non-compliant. 

Yes, in accordance with NJ Public Procurement Regulations. 

Yes, bids must be made public in accordance with NJ Public Procurement Regulations. 

Yes.  From the time that TRC has issued the formal approval letter to the local government, the local government has 6 months to enter into contract with the specified auditing firm, get their audit performed, and have a final audit report submitted to TRC.  Under their contract with the NJ Department of Treasury, the selected auditing firm shall perform an energy audit of all buildings and facilities within 60 days of the date of the engagement for energy audit services between the engagement entity or cooperative purchasing partner and the energy audit contractor.

Water conservation is not presently within the scope of this program but you can have the auditing firms provide a separate price for a water conservation study.  The program will not issue any funds toward that portion of the audit, but will provide incentives for the remainder of the audit. Please check with us routinely as the scope of measures in the audit might change.

The local government should pay the auditing firms directly. The incentive for this program is paid directly to the local government upon approval of the final report. Your contract terms with the selected contractor will determine how you make payments. We recommend paying the firm after the final audit report has been approved by the Program, as incentives will only be paid upon approval of the final report.

If the local government does not own the building, it must directly pay the utilities, thereby paying into the Societal Benefit Charge (SBC) which funds the Program. It must also have permission from the building owner to perform the audit AND to install any of the recommended measures. If a local government is able to provide documentation that both of these conditions are satisfied, they may perform the audit on the rented building.

Yes, Charter Schools are treated under the Public Schools Contract Law, and considered eligible local government entities.

The 25% is determined on a per building basis. This means that the local government must spend more than 25% of the cost of the audit for “Building A” on the recommended measures for “Building A” in order to avoid having to reimburse 25% of the audit cost for “Building A.”  In order to recover ALL the audit costs, the local government must perform sufficient work in every building that was audited.

The New Jersey Department of Treasury conducted a competitive bid for auditing firms, and contracted the selected firms.  At this time, Treasury is not accepting applications for more auditing firms, but you can contact them directly for more information.  The pre-qualified auditing firms are able to add sub-contractors, so you may want to contact the firms directly to find out if you can get involved in this program as a sub-contractor.

If you still have questions, call 866-NJSMART, and press option 4, then tell the operator you’re interested in the Local Government Energy Audit Program.