Late last year President Biden issued the Executive Order on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability (the Clean Energy EO) to set aggressive decarbonization goals for federal agencies.1` The federal government is the largest energy consumer in the United States.
There are three primary contracting mechanisms that federal agencies have historically used to purchase competitively priced renewable energy and that are available to achieve the targets set forth in the Clean Energy EO: energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs), utility energy service contracts (UESCs) and power purchase agreements (PPAs).2 This Legal Update summarizes the Clean Energy EO and each of the historically prevalent contracting mechanisms, along with the regulatory nuances they entail.