Arizona • Independent Auditors
Commercial Energy Audits in Arizona
ASHRAE Level 1–2 audits for small commercial — envelope, HVAC, lighting, and demand-charge strategy.
A commercial energy audit finds the operating costs hiding in your building — in the rooftop units, the lighting, the controls, and above all the demand charges that can dominate an Arizona business's electric bill. We perform ASHRAE Level 1 and Level 2 audits for offices, retail, restaurants, and warehouses, delivering an energy conservation measure roadmap with real costs, savings, and payback for each opportunity. For a small business fighting summer utility bills, it's the analysis that turns guesswork into a funded plan.
ASHRAE 1–2
Audit Levels
From a screening walkthrough to a detailed, investment-grade analysis.
Demand $
The Hidden Driver
Peak-demand charges often rival energy charges on AZ commercial bills.
ECM Roadmap
Your Deliverable
Ranked measures with cost, savings, and payback for each.
Who a Commercial Audit Is For
Commercial energy audits make sense for any Arizona business where the electric bill is a meaningful line item — which, in this climate, is nearly all of them. Offices, retail storefronts, restaurants, medical suites, warehouses, and light-industrial spaces all carry cooling and equipment loads that summer amplifies dramatically.
The businesses that benefit most are those seeing bills climb without a clear reason, facing a lease renewal or build-out decision, planning equipment replacement, or simply trying to protect margin against rising utility rates. If you own or operate the building, the audit gives you a capital-planning tool. If you lease, it gives you leverage and a roadmap for negotiating improvements.
ASHRAE Audit Levels Explained
Commercial audits follow a standardized framework defined by ASHRAE, so you know exactly what depth of analysis you're getting. We scope the level to your building and goals.
- Level 1 — Walkthrough: a screening audit that reviews utility bills, benchmarks your building, and identifies low-cost and no-cost measures plus the potential for deeper savings.
- Level 2 — Energy Survey and Analysis: a detailed assessment of systems and loads with a full economic analysis of recommended measures, suitable for making investment decisions.
- Level 3 — Investment-Grade (referral): for major capital projects requiring rigorous engineering and monitoring, we'll scope and coordinate the deeper analysis.
What We Assess
A commercial building loses and wastes energy in more places than a home, and our audit works through each system methodically.
- Building envelope — roof and wall insulation, glazing, and air leakage, scanned with the thermal camera.
- HVAC and rooftop units (RTUs) — condition, efficiency, controls, economizer function, and right-sizing for the actual load.
- Lighting — fixture types, hours of operation, and the payback on LED retrofits and occupancy controls.
- Controls and scheduling — thermostat setpoints, night setbacks, and building automation opportunities.
- Refrigeration and plug loads — for restaurants and retail, often a large and overlooked share of the bill.
- Utility rate and demand profile — how your business is billed and where the biggest cost levers sit.
Demand Charges: The Arizona Commercial Bill's Hidden Half
Here is what separates a commercial audit from a residential one in Arizona: demand charges. Most commercial rate plans from APS and SRP bill you not only for the energy you use, but for your single highest interval of power draw each month — your peak demand. On a hot afternoon when the AC, lights, and equipment all run at once, that peak spikes, and it can account for a large share of your total bill.
The powerful insight is that you can lower demand charges without necessarily using less total energy — by staggering equipment startup, improving HVAC efficiency, adding controls, or shifting loads away from the peak. Our audit analyzes your demand profile specifically and identifies the measures that flatten those peaks. It's the savings most business owners don't even realize is on the table.
Utility Commercial Rebates
Both APS and SRP run business energy-efficiency programs with rebates for qualifying HVAC, lighting, controls, and other upgrades — and many of those programs favor or require a professional audit to establish the baseline and verify savings. The audit is what makes your project rebate-eligible and documents the numbers the utility wants to see.
We identify which current business rebate programs apply to your building and measures, and we prepare the supporting documentation. Because program budgets and amounts change annually, we confirm the live APS and SRP business offers at the time of your audit and direct you to the utility's own program pages for verification.
Your Report and ECM Roadmap
The deliverable is an energy conservation measure (ECM) roadmap: a ranked list of recommended improvements, each with estimated cost, annual savings, and simple payback. That structure lets you fund the work like any other capital decision — starting with the no-cost operational changes and fast-payback retrofits, then building toward larger investments as the savings compound.
For a Level 2 audit, the analysis is detailed enough to support real investment decisions and, where relevant, financing or utility incentive applications. The goal is a plan you can actually execute against your budget, not a binder that sits on a shelf. We're an independent auditor, so the roadmap reflects what your building needs, not a product we're trying to sell.
Common Questions
Commercial Audits FAQs
Straight answers from an independent auditor. More on our full FAQ page.
Have a different question? Read all 28 FAQs or see our 2026 Arizona energy audit guide.
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Ready to Find Out Why Your Bill Is So High?
Book an independent energy audit for your Arizona home or business. We measure exactly where your money is going — and hand you a prioritized plan to stop it.