Assessments were slow
Utility bills, site surveys, and equipment lists had to be read, reconciled, and turned into an energy profile by hand — for every site.
Case study · Energy efficiency
The paperwork stopped being the bottleneck.
How we helped a regional commercial energy-efficiency contractor carry a project from first assessment to filed utility rebate — encoding two decades of expertise into a governed workflow, so the team could win and deliver more work without adding headcount to the paperwork.
The client
A trusted regional energy-efficiency contractor.
Established over fifteen years ago as the energy division of a commercial construction group, the client is one of its region's longest-standing utility Direct Install partners — approved across every public utility program in its state.
It helps businesses, municipalities, non-profits, and schools cut energy costs through lighting and HVAC retrofits, EV charging, and solar — capturing utility incentives of up to 80% along the way. (Client anonymized at their request.)
01
15+ years
Energy division of a commercial construction group, with a decades-long reputation.
02
Every utility
Approved across every public utility program in its state.
03
Up to 80%
Incentive coverage available through Direct Install — when the filing is right.
04
4 lines
Energy efficiency, EV charging, and solar across four customer segments.
01 / The friction
The expertise scaled. The paperwork didn't.
Every project ran the same gauntlet — assess, qualify, propose, contract, install, document, file. Most of it was high-skill, low-variation work that ate the team's best hours and capped how much they could take on.
Incentive rules are intricate
Program eligibility and incentive math vary by utility, measure, and customer type — and they change. Getting it wrong costs the customer money and erodes trust.
The filing was the bottleneck
Rebate and program documentation is exacting, repetitive, and unforgiving. A missing form or number can stall a payout for weeks.
02 / What we built
A deterministic pipeline with LLM steps — agents only where they earn it.
A governed workflow for the assessment-to-completion pipeline.
Most of this pipeline is deterministic work with LLM-powered steps and a human reviewer at every consequential point — we added agent autonomy only where the task genuinely varies. The simplest architecture that clears the bar is the one that stays cheap, fast, and auditable.
STEP 01
Assessment Intake
Turns raw site inputs into a clean, structured energy profile — in minutes, not days.
- Extracts usage and rate data from utility bills and survey notes
- Normalizes equipment inventories into a fixtures-and-loads model
- Flags gaps and asks for exactly what's missing
STEP 02
Incentive & Eligibility
Applies the current program rulebook so no incentive is left on the table.
- Matches measures to Direct Install and utility program eligibility
- Calculates incentives — up to 80% — and customer net cost
- Cites the rule behind every number for reviewer confidence
STEP 03
Proposal & Savings
Drafts the customer-ready scope, savings case, and financing options.
- Generates retrofit scope for lighting and HVAC measures
- Projects energy savings, payback, and no-interest repayment paths
- Produces a branded proposal for a human to review and send
STEP 04
Rebate & Documentation
Assembles the utility paperwork — complete, checked, and submission-ready.
- Populates program forms from the project record
- Validates against submission requirements before it reaches a human
- Tracks status through to payout and surfaces anything stuck
STEP 05
Coordination & Updates
Keeps projects moving and customers informed at every step.
- Schedules crews and subcontractors against project milestones
- Drafts proactive customer status updates for approval
- Maintains a single, auditable record from analysis to completion
03 / The outcome
Measured across the client's live pipeline.
More projects won and delivered — with the same trusted team.
Every figure below was agreed as a target up front and tracked in production against the client's own baseline.
0%
Less time from first assessment to a customer-ready proposal.
0×
More assessments handled per estimator, without added headcount.
0
Incentive filings submitted without a completeness check.
0%
Of decisions traceable — for the customer, the utility, and the auditor.
In their words
Keep the judgment with the experts. Give the repetition to the system.
— Operations lead, energy-efficiency contractor
Your workflow next
Every operations-heavy business has a workflow like this.
Tell us yours. We'll map it and show you what a governed workflow could do with it.