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About AOBA Alliance, Inc. |
Mission Statement Board
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History The AOBA Alliance has evolved from a long history of leadership on the part of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA) in energy and utility matters. Having represented the commercial building industry in virtually every major utility proceeding affecting electricity and natural gas consumers in the Washington Metropolitan area for the last 25 years, AOBA has established itself as the primary voice of the commercial building industry in both legislative and regulatory activities. Recognizing that movements toward deregulation of retail electricity and natural gas markets could provide both opportunities and challenges for commercial building owners and managers, the leadership of AOBA sought to ensure that any deregulation scheme adopted would maximize their potential savings while protecting their interests. In this context, AOBA became an active participant in both regulatory and legislative activities relating to utility deregulation in Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. AOBA also undertook a nearly three-year long process to assess how it could best assist its members in gaining cost-effective access to energy markets if retail electric and natural gas markets were deregulated. Those activities culminated early in 2000 with the formation of the AOBA Alliance, Inc., a wholly-owned, for-profit, subsidiary of AOBA. The AOBA Alliance was charged, in part, with facilitating the participation of apartment and office building owners and managers in newly deregulated retail markets for electricity and natural gas. (See the AOBA Alliance, Inc. Mission Statement). However, understanding the importance of energy use information and energy use efficiency in competitive markets, the AOBA Alliance also sought to create a structure that would aid participants in their efforts to gain a better understanding of their electrical and natural gas usage profiles, as well as help them to secure the services they might need to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. Thus, the first task of the AOBA Alliance was identify providers and assess the types of relationships with energy service companies that would best address those objectives. After interviewing a large number of potential service providers, the AOBA Alliance selected PEPCO Energy Services, Inc. as its "preferred provider" and entered into a three-year partnership arrangement to develop and market energy and energy-related service products to the office and apartment building industry in the Washington area. When electric service became deregulated in Maryland on July 1, 2000, AOBA was one of the first organizations to offer competitively priced electric service in that state. By late August 2000, the AOBA Alliance had enrolled over 30 building management companies in its Maryland offering representing over 1,500 electric service accounts and an aggregate peak demand of more than 137 MW. That was more than double its initial enrollment target for Maryland. This has been followed by two more successful electric offerings in Maryland. In addition, with the commencement of deregulation of retail electric markets in the District of Columbia on January 1, 2001, the AOBA Alliance undertook the formulation and marketing of competitive electric service offering in that jurisdiction. Its first District of Columbia offering also substantially exceeded initial marketing goals. In the District and Maryland combined, the AOBA Alliance now has enrolled more than 3,000 electric accounts with an aggregated load in excess of 325 MW. |
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AOBA Alliance, Inc. Office:
(202) 296-3390 |
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