Energy Efficiency Auditing — the building audit as software
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
One thing must be trueEntry turns on a single condition that can be named and tested before much is spent. Clear it and this becomes an execution question; fail it and no amount of operating skill helps.
Prove the value in money the buyer already counts. The need is real; what is unproven is that this buyer moves budget for it. That is a priced test with real customers, not a product problem.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 8
The binding constraint — willingness to pay
Nobody buys the audit. The audit is the free front end of an installation contract somebody else pays for, and the benchmarking tool the mandates actually require is given away by the US federal government. This category is the odd one out of the four sustainability markets screened here and it is scored separately: its drivers are utility programme budgets set by state regulatory commissions and city building-performance standards, not corporate disclosure, so the CSRD and California turmoil barely touches it. The answer is still no, for a different reason. Look at where the money is. Willdan's FY2025 10-K (year ended 2026-01-02, filed 2026-02-27) reports $681.552M of contract revenue, 85% of it in the Energy segment, with $316.772M — 46.5% of every revenue dollar — going straight out as subcontractor services and other direct costs. Audits, benchmarking analyses and programme design are listed among the services and are never priced separately; they are how the installed measures get sold. Two customers alone were 27.4% of Energy segment revenue, and the filing states plainly that demand and terms for utility programmes "are highly regulated and driven by various state regulatory commissions" [A]. The software floor is zero. EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, the benchmarking artefact most ordinances require, was live and free on 2026-09-20. EnergyPlus, OpenStudio and DOE's SEED Platform are national-lab code, all pushed within the last week [A]. And the federal subsidy is going: the OBBBA repeals the Section 179D deduction for property where construction begins after 2026-06-30 [A].
The incumbent
Who owns this market and who is coming for it. Fields a screen never reached say so rather than guessing.
Financials & market size — sourced
Figures that came from a filing, a results release or reputable reporting, each carrying its evidence tier.
Market size, derived
Built from the competitor set upward rather than quoted from a forecast. Published TAMs in these categories are frequently reverse-engineered from each other, so any published figure is checked against the vendor arithmetic rather than trusted on its own.
Disclosed revenue from 1 of 7 named vendors. The market is at least this large.
No vendor has both a disclosed revenue and a published share.
Only a revenue floor is known — the true market is larger by whatever the undisclosed vendors earn.
Competitor set · 7 named · 1 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Willdan GroupNASDAQ: WLDNA | $682M | — | FY2025 contract revenue, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 2026-01-02, filed 2026-02-27. Energy segment $576.051M, Engineering and Consulting $105.501M. No software line is reported; audits and benchmarking analyses are named as services inside programme contracts, so the tier A covers the total and the absence of a software line |
| ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager (US EPA)A | not disclosed | — | A federal programme, not a company — no revenue exists. Named as a competitor because it is the tool most building benchmarking ordinances are written around, and it costs nothing. Fetched 2026-09-20 and serving — The single most important fact in this screen: the reference implementation is free and federally maintained. Whether the programme survives future federal budgets is UNVERIFIED |
| AmerescoNYSE: AMRCB | not disclosed | — | Confirmed a current SEC filer — 10-K filed 2026-03-03 and DEF 14A filed 2026-04-23 appear in EDGAR full-text search — but its financial statements were not opened for this screen, so no figure is cited. An energy services company: audits are a project origination cost |
| LegenceNYSE: LGNB | not disclosed | — | A current SEC filer (10-K filed 2026-03-30, found in EDGAR full-text search); statements not opened, no figure cited. Building services and efficiency delivery — the same shape as Willdan |
| EnergyCAPC | not disclosed | — | Private; no disclosure, and no SEC presence at all — EDGAR full-text search returns zero documents mentioning it since 2025. Utility bill and energy data management, the nearest thing to a pure software play in this category |
| VerdigrisC | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. Verdigris Technologies, Inc. last filed a Form D on 2021-12-13 and nothing since [A for that fact] — which is a data point on how much new capital this corner has attracted |
| Schneider Electric Resource AdvisorC | not disclosed | — | Schneider Electric reports in euros, is not an SEC filer, and does not break out this platform. Reports of changes to the ownership of its sustainability business were not sourced and are UNVERIFIED |
Startups & challengers
Newer and smaller vendors going at the incumbent — funded challengers first. Named, not researched to the depth of the field above; a company with a page here links to it.
Vendor landscape
Market leaders, the full paid field, and every open-source alternative. Where a free tier exists it is what sets the price floor, so it is analysis rather than an appendix.
$681.552M FY2025 contract revenue, 85% Energy, 46.5% of revenue paid out as subcontractor cost [A]
Free federal benchmarking tool; the compliance artefact many ordinances name [A]
Current SEC filers in energy services; figures not opened here
Paid field · 5 vendors
Private; bill data management rather than audit
Private; submetering and AI load disaggregation
Sold on the back of an energy procurement relationship
Building energy folded into a sustainability suite
Services firms; the audit is bundled, not licensed
Open source · 4 projects — the price floor
The whole-building simulation engine, 1,570 stars, last push 2026-09-18 [A, GitHub API]
Modelling SDK over EnergyPlus, 646 stars, last push 2026-09-18 [A, GitHub API]
Standard Energy Efficiency Data platform for portfolio benchmarking data, last push 2026-09-18 [A, GitHub API]
Not open source, but free at the point of use and the artefact benchmarking ordinances ask for [A, fetched 2026-09-20]
This is the one of the four sustainability categories that does not run on corporate disclosure — it runs on ratepayer-funded utility programmes, city and state building-performance standards, and tax incentives. That is why it is scored on willingness to pay rather than on growth quality. But it shares the others' vendor problem from the other direction: the sustainability suites (IBM Envizi, Schneider, Cority, Sphera) all reach into building energy data, while the money sits with engineering firms who treat the audit as customer acquisition.
Evidence
Evidence. Sourced from Willdan Group's FY2025 Form 10-K (fiscal year ended 2026-01-02, filed 2026-02-27), read directly: $681.552M contract revenue, Energy segment $576.051M (85%), subcontractor services and other direct costs $316.772M (46.5% of revenue), two customers at 27.4% of Energy segment revenue, the statement that utility programme demand is set by state regulatory commissions, and the tax note recording that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (signed 2025-07-04) repeals the Section 179D energy-efficient buildings deduction for property whose construction begins after 2026-06-30. EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager page was fetched 2026-09-20 and is serving. EnergyPlus, OpenStudio and the DOE SEED Platform repositories were checked through the GitHub API the same day for activity. Ameresco and Legence were confirmed as current SEC filers through EDGAR full-text search but their statements were NOT opened, so no revenue is cited for either. NOT sourced, and not claimed: any market size for audit software — no dollar figure is asserted; any revenue for EnergyCAP, Verdigris, Schneider Electric Resource Advisor or IBM Envizi, none of which publishes one. The long-term funding of the ENERGY STAR programme itself is UNVERIFIED — it was live today, and this record does not assume it stays. The status of specific city and state building-performance standards (New York Local Law 97 and its counterparts) was NOT opened and is UNVERIFIED; nothing here depends on any one of them. Verify before acting.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
National voice for EnerGuide-style Energy Advisors in Canada, per its About text; site lists member webinars and an Existing Home EA Forum dated Oct 2026.
Carleton-based national energy-efficiency policy and research organisation; runs a Provincial Scorecard, an ally network and communities of practice.
Home page states 'over 18,500 members and 32,000 active certifications, in over 144 countries'; issues the CEM and CEA (energy auditor) credentials. Has Canadian chapters.
AEE's annual conference and technology expo; site shows the 2026 agenda, expo and sponsors.
Home-performance and weatherization contractors' association (formerly Home Performance Coalition); runs the National Home Performance Conference and regional events.
Standards and certification body for home-performance and energy-audit professionals, per its site.
Standards body for HERS home energy raters; site offers rater certification and membership.
Home Energy magazine (homeenergy.org) no longer resolves. Energy Services Association of Canada (energyservicesassociation.ca) blocked automated access and was not searched, so it is left off.