ConEdison Solutions Expands Southeast Presence With Purchase of BGA Inc.

Expanding its footprint in the energy services business into the Southeast, ConEdison Solutions, White Plains, N.Y., plans to acquire BGA Inc., an energy service and engineering company headquartered in Tampa, Fla.

Founded as Bosek, Gibson & Associates (BGA) in 1986, the firm provides energy consulting services to clients in 35 states. BGA has managed over $200 million in energy service projects. The company develops and implements energy conservation measures for commercial, governmental, healthcare and institutional facilities. It designs complex building systems and energy infrastructure, and also provides turnkey construction management services.

Upon completion of this transaction, Con Edison Solutions would increase its energy services operating footprint into the Southeast. BGA’s Tampa office will join ConEdison Solutions’ existing offices in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Texas.

“In BGA, we have acquired a company that is highly regarded throughout the Southeast for its engineering capabilities and long history of delivering value to its clients,” said Jorge J. Lopez, president and CEO of ConEdison Solutions. “The combination enhances our ability to help clients achieve their energy efficiency goals while laying the groundwork for additional market expansion.”

Bernie Erickson, president and CEO of O.K. Electric Supply Inc., Perth Amboy, N.J., has sold electrical products to ConEdison Solutions for years and said this is not the company’s first acquisition. About four years ago, ConEdison Solutions bought the energy and engineering services division of XENERGY Inc., Fairfax, Va. That acquisition helped Con Edison Solutions expand into the Virginia/Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts markets.

“Typically they will buy an architectural engineering energy-type company and then use that as a platform to go out and sell to commercial and industrial clients in the area and then expand the scope of the other services as well as energy services,” Erickson said.

“ConEdison Solutions is a big customer of ours, so we do quite a bit of business with the New York division. We have a program that we’re doing with them. They don’t buy the material directly or use their own installation people. They subcontract out both the material and labor.”

ConEdison Solutions is an energy-services company (ESCO) that provides competitive energy supply and cost-effective energy solutions for commercial, industrial, residential and government customers. It’s a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison Inc., the New York-based utility.

The company recently was awarded a contract to retrofit an estimated 1,400 postal facilities in the New York, New Jersey and Caribbean, according to a recent report in Electrical Wholesaling magazine. Under the program, ConEd Solutions will identify and install energy conservation measures including renewable energy sources such as solar, wind power and geothermal heat pumps. Other system improvements could include such things as combined heat and power systems, HVAC equipment, building controls and lighting retrofits.

The contract, one of six such awarded under the postal service’s Shared Energy Savings (SES) program, is part of a nationwide initiative to save $11 million a year in energy costs over 10 years, for a total savings of $110 million. The six contracts have an estimated value of $1.3 billion. Participating companies will receive a percentage of the dollar savings attributable to the projects in return for assuming implementation costs.

The U.S. Postal Service, a charter client of ConEdison Solutions, has been a customer of the company since 1997. As of the end of 2004, the USPS had saved more than $5 million each year in energy costs through participation in ConEdison Solutions’ programs.