Won’t you be our neighbor? The story of AIQUEOUS and our work in affordable housing.
AIQUEOUS is a software and consulting firm born and raised in Austin, Texas. Since the beginning, our overarching mission has been to modernize both electric and water utility operations. With this in mind it may come as a surprise that in 2016 we also entered the realm of affordable housing as well, through Utility Allowance Modeling. However with decades of experience in the water and energy sectors, to perform a Utility Allowance Model was a natural fit: it did not feel like our first rodeo, so to speak. Since then, we have already worked with 12 companies/organizations on 47 properties in 7 states and enabled a total savings of over $2.5 million dollars for our clients. As they say in Texas: “that dog will hunt”. Today we are excited to continue to expand our modeling work into other states and with other clients, providing savings that can make big differences: whether that be to finance energy and water efficiency retrofits, provide more tenant services, enable property improvements or for the construction of additional affordable housing.
This year in particular has been a busy one for AIQUEOUS. In just these last six months we have begun modeling work with four new clients in four new states: Oklahoma, Florida, Connecticut, and New York. In two of those states, Connecticut and Florida, the Models we ran provided the biggest savings per unit we have seen for a property to date. In general, as we continue to perform this work we are witnessing great results across the board for our clients. Of the 47 total properties that we have Modeled, all but two were able –through the adjustment of their Utility Allowance based on our Model- to realize significant annual savings. The table and graph below demonstrate these results.
By calculating the average savings for all projects over these three years, we learn that each client is saving approximately $55,661.41 per year for each property modeled. While the results of modeling can depending on many factors (i.e. year of building construction, number of rooms, appliance and fixture types, temperatures etc.), the average annual savings per property is significant.
Because of these dramatic savings, our clients are able to completely recover their initial investments in a short amount of time. The payback period in which an initial investment was recovered is illustrated in the graph below. Worth noting is that about nearly 35% of projects had a return on investment within only two months.
We here at AIQUEOUS have been encouraged with these results. Beyond just the savings we have provided to our clients, we have also been excited to begin aggregating data collected from past modeling work. In doing so we can not only provide greater efficiency and accuracy in future models, but we are also able to hone our recommendations on beneficial energy and water retrofits available to clients after models are performed. Recognizing what are the best strategies based on number of bedrooms, year of construction, and appliance and fixture types that are present on a property for example, can go a long way towards making housing energy and water efficient. If you haven’t attended one of our webinars in the past, or are interested in learning more about Utility Allowance Modeling or our process, you can watch the video from our most recent webinar below:
