Drive resilience and meet goals with strategic energy management.
Deliver what matters: participation, persistence, and performance.
Strategic energy management (SEM) is more than just a program. It's a comprehensive strategy.
When delivered well, SEM programs build trust, achieve lasting savings, and strengthen your commercial and industrial portfolio — site by site, project by project.
Make SEM the Cornerstone of your C&I Portfolio.
SEM isn’t a side program—it’s the driver.
When done right, SEM delivers enduring benefits for both utilities and customers. Use it to:
- Generate persistent, measurable energy savings
- Cultivate long-term customer relationships
- Advance broader DSM, decarbonization, and grid goals
- Turn data into action through expert guidance
- Support difficult-to-decarbonize sectors with practical tools
Start With Quick Wins
We help your customers capture immediate, cost-effective savings through O&M opportunities—building internal momentum and trust in your programs.
From there, we guide them toward deeper impact. With early results in hand, customers are more willing to invest in complex, high-value capital projects that drive lasting savings
Build Positive Relationships
SEM strengthens your customer relationships. Participants gain a clear view of how energy affects their operations—and they start seeing you as a partner in improving efficiency. Our cohort model connects facilities across industries, creating a shared space for problem-solving, accountability, and peer learning. This collaboration often boosts participation across your full program portfolio.
Action-oriented
Workshops
Action-oriented
Workshops
Site Walkthroughs
with Experts
Site Walkthroughs
with Experts
One-on-one
Coaching Calls
One-on-one
Coaching Calls
Cutting-edge
Software Platform
Cutting-edge
Software Platform
Why Utilities Choose Us to Run Their SEM Programs
Hit lifecycle savings goals
Our programs average over 700,000 kWh in electric energy savings per participant in the first year of SEM.
Cost-effective delivery
We deliver SEM programs for as low as $0.07/kWh in some cases.
C&I customer satisfaction
Overall, respondents had positive experiences with the SEM offering and had a high level of satisfaction.
Deep technical expertise yields real results
Over 25,000 implemented energy efficiency projects to date.
Gazebo™
Unite teams around a common energy performance management language and process.
SEM Program Customers
Why Cascade?
Working with Cascade means tapping into 15 years of SEM program design and implementation expertise that’s already benefited over 750 C&I sites across 18 states and provinces. Our tailored approach ensures you provide an SEM program designed around the unique needs of your customer base. You’re not just getting a program implementer; you’re getting a partner renowned for continuous innovation. Our SEM work combines deep technical expertise to help find energy-saving projects with industry-leading facilitation and coaching on change management.
Guiding Principles
We follow these six key strategies for long-term commitment to SEM and persistence in energy savings:
Achieve Quick Wins.
Get the team moving. C&I sites are often short on staff and long on priorities, so they need to see results early. Our approach helps participants identify quick wins to achieve quick savings.
Learn by Doing.
It’s about action, in the field, with help where needed. Our C&I systems experts are on site, with participants, offering site-specific suggestions and solutions. When participants learn by doing, they achieve lasting knowledge of SEM tools and resources.
Go Beyond the Individual.
Individuals are helpful – teams are powerful. We help participants build a diverse energy team to lead program participation for their organization. When teams are engaged, more gets done and a culture of energy management persists despite staff turnover.
Get Things Done.
Today. This week. This month. Our coaching approach emphasizes prioritizing opportunities, focusing on the best ones, and fostering a team culture of accountability to finish projects.
Include the Engineer.
Energy teams face both organizational and technical barriers. We assign an SEM coach and an engineer with specialized industry expertise to help on both fronts.
Bring Good Tools.
Our energy management platform Gazebo™ tackles the fundamental challenges of SEM: lots of data and projects, multiple people, a lengthy engagement, delivery at scale, and savings persistence.
Cascade SEM by the Numbers
Gazebo, the SEM implementation cloud.
Drive scalable, lasting savings and actionable innovation with Gazebo, the SEM implementation cloud. Gazebo helps utilities and implementers:
- Analyze demand-side energy use for every facility and roll up the numbers to get a complete understanding.
- Eliminate the manual work of capturing behind-the-meter data across complex energy footprints.
- Centralize all program data to gain a single source of truth that eliminates the accessibility and version-control struggles of spreadsheets.
- Unite teams around a common energy performance management language and process.
We have continued to work with Cascade over the years for many reasons, but most especially their customer service, creativity, insight, reliability, and expertise.
– Utility customer, SEM program director
I believe that the quality of service we receive is a direct correlation to the type of people you have on staff… We appreciate the bond of trust that has been developed over the years and look forward to many more.
– Utility customer
