Monthly Newsletter: Subscribe to the Hub's monthly newsletter The Blueprint to be informed about relevant funding and financing announcements, educational offerings, events, case studies, and more.  

Technical Assistance Tools

• ​Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER)​: A DOE-funded software toolkit for building operators to easily identify the most cost-saving energy efficiency measures in buildings and portfolios (without site visits and complex modeling) using readily available building and energy data. Users can identify immediate, cost-saving energy efficiency improvements and understand where to focus further audits and studies.

• Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE): A comprehensive database of incentives, programs, and policies that support energy efficiency and renewables across the country. Users can input their state and/or zip code to generate results.  

• Department of Energy (DOE) Financing Navigator: Helps commercial building owners explore financing options for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. ​

• ENERGY STAR Tax Credit and Rebate Finder Tool​: Helps homeowners find financial incentives for efficient appliances, such as heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, insulation, windows, and electric upgrades. 

• ENERGY STAR Cash Flow Opportunity Calculator: Helps building owners estimate how much new equipment can be financed using anticipated savings, as well as answer questions such as whether an owner should finance now or wait for a lower interest rate.

• RMI Clean Buildings Incentive Stacking Guides: Offers a repository of resources on how to “stack” or combine federal programs and incentives for building electrification and decarbonization.

• Green Lease Leaders: Leases that align sustainability and financial incentives between the landlord and tenant, which helps enable building decarbonization to advance efficient and carbon neutral buildings. The Green Lease Leaders Program sets the standard for what constitutes a green lease, provides guidance in leasing practices to advance mutually beneficial landlord-tenant relationships that lead to higher-performing buildings, and recognizes organizations for their green leasing work.

Technical Assistance​ Resources

• Energy Savings Performance Contracting (ESPC) Campaign: Aims to empower public sector building owners, including state and local governments, universities and colleges, schools, and hospitals, to leverage ESPCs, a financing mechanism that allows building owners to pay for facility upgrades with tomorrow’s energy savings. Through 2028, DOE will offer forums for technical assistance and peer knowledge sharing. 
  

• ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Training Center: The most widely used tool for measuring and tracking commercial building performance data, including energy and water use as well as emissions. ENERGY STAR hosts frequent online trainings and webinars to help building owners understand how to best leverage this tool. 
  

• MD Local Government BEPS Cohort: From 2024-2025, ClearlyEnergy and the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) are helping prepare Maryland’s county and municipal governments for building energy performance standard compliance. The cohort will offer educational trainings, technical assistance, and opportunities for peer knowledge sharing. Interested governments may sign up here.  
  

• Montgomery County Green Bank Technical Assistance Program: Supports feasibility study costs for commercial building owners. Studies may include ASHRAE Level I, Level II, Level III/ Investment Grade audits and/or targeted analyses into benchmarking, energy efficiency, renewable energy (e.g., solar PV), electrification, EV charging infrastructure, and resiliency measures. Only available for buildings located in Montgomery County.
  

• DOE Zero Energy Ready Home Education Hub: A landing page for all training and educational materials related to the Zero Energy Ready Home Program. 
  

• Gre​en & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) Technical Assistance: Provides a variety of technical assistance services to clients, such as community-based organizations, state, county, and city governments, and healthcare providers and payers. Offerings include programmatic capacity building, innovative financing, coordinated delivery of housing, health, and energy services, and healthy housing policy.
  

Ad​ditional Hub Resources

• Benchmarking: Energy benchmarking is the process of tracking a building's annual energy use and using a standard metric to compare the building's performance against past performance and to similar building types.
  

• Energy Audits: Buildings need routine check-ups to pinpoint if and where energy is being wasted. Energy assessments and audits help building owners understand their facilitie's energy use and areas for improvement.
  

• Building Electrification: Describes shifting to electricity rather than fossil fuels for heating, hot water heating, and cooking appliances and systems. As the electric grid adds more renewable energy generation, all buildings and systems connected to it benefit from lower carbon emissions.​​​