I've spent most of my career helping organizations design and deliver energy projects—from commercial buildings and hospitals to universities and large industrial facilities. One thing I've learned is this: customers almost never walk in asking for a program. They want lower operating costs, a more resilient facility, a path to electrification, and better comfort for occupants. They have goals, and we have programs.
That disconnect is one of the biggest reasons our industry leaves participation on the table.
We naturally organize our work around programs for weatherization, electrification, demand response, renewable energy, and other solutions, each with its own funding, objectives, and requirements. But the people we serve rarely think that way. Instead, a homeowner wants lower energy bills. A hospital needs greater resilience. A university has decarbonization goals. The technology or incentive is simply a means to get there.
When we start with what the participant is trying to accomplish instead of what program we have to offer, we create a clearer path forward. And that matters, because the first project is rarely the last.
Too often, we think of participation as a single decision. In reality, it's a journey.
For a homeowner, that might mean weatherization before electrification. For a university, it may mean operational improvements before major capital upgrades. A healthcare system may address resilience today while preparing for future decarbonization. I’ve seen plenty of projects where jumping straight to the "big solution" would have been the wrong answer.
Success isn’t about promoting the next technology. It’s about understanding where participants are today, helping them take the right next step, and making sure that step doesn’t close the door on what might come next. To me, that’s what integration really means: the right solutions at the right time.
When people hear “integrated program design,” they sometimes assume we’re making things more complicated—but I’ve found the opposite is usually true.
One project that comes to mind is work my team and I did with a community college campus in Northern California. Their goal was to stay operational through extended utility outages. There were a lot of possible solutions on the table—efficiency, storage, solar, backup generation, or a microgrid. We didn’t start by just picking one solution. Instead, we looked at the campus as a whole: how it used energy, where it could reduce load, and what it really needed to keep running. By reducing the load first, we could reduce the size and cost of future resiliency investments. From there, we determined the right mix of generation, storage, and other solutions.
That’s the same thinking we should bring to program participants: start with what they’re trying to accomplish and recommend the solutions that make sense, not just a program that might mostly fit. Sometimes that's electrification, but sometimes it's weatherization, demand response, or renewable energy. And sometimes the best answer is helping someone prepare for an investment they’ll make later.
That approach makes the experience simpler. Participants shouldn't have to understand how our programs are organized or figure out which incentive goes with which improvement. That's our job. They tell us where they want to go, and we help them find the best way to get there.
We measure program success in a lot of ways: energy savings, participation, emissions reductions, resilience, and customer satisfaction. All of those outcomes matter, but they’re outcomes. They’re not where we should start.
After years of working on energy projects, I keep coming back to the same basic idea: good solutions start with understanding the problem in front of you. Programs perform best when they reflect how people actually make decisions. Whether you're serving homeowners, businesses, universities, healthcare systems, or entire communities, make it easier to understand the right next step—and then take the one after that.
Every successful project gives us another opportunity to deepen the relationship and deliver more value. When we design around that comprehensive journey instead of individual programs, participation gets easier. And better participation leads to better results.
If you're looking for new ways to increase participation and improve program performance, let's start a conversation. At Franklin Energy, we bring program delivery, engineering, and design/build capabilities together to create integrated energy solutions that work in the real world.