About Us
Woman Owned & Operated Small Business
Abacus Energy Works℠, LLC is a woman owned and controlled small business.
We are certified as a woman-owned and -operated business by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and the United States Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Woman-Owned Small Business Federal Contract (WOSB) Program.
Mission
Our mission at Abacus Energy Works℠ is to support our clients as they navigate the transition to a more sustainable energy future.
Why "Abacus Energy Works?"
We chose the name to reflect our core values, our goals, and the services we offer our clients:
- The architectural definition reflects our dedication to supporting our clients as they strive to achieve their goals in a complex, evolving environment.
- The more familiar definition as a counting frame reflects our expertise in quantifying and verifying the effects and attributes of a pilot, program, policy or investment.
Values
Energy isn’t simple.
It powers nearly every aspect of our lives, letting us work, travel, and entertain ourselves, keeping us happy, safe, comfortable, and fed. Yet energy can also drive climate change, bringing storms, floods, fires, droughts, and other disruptions.
Stress on the electrical grid arises from extreme weather, increased reliance on renewables, and the electrification of more aspects of our lives, from transportation to cooking to industrial process heat and AI.
Change is in the air.
Here in New Hampshire, we’re seeing beach communities flood, lobsters and maple trees move north, ski slopes have shorter seasons, farmers’ fields fail from drought or flood.
You are experiencing this, too (maybe not with lobsters). These changes impact our neighbors, communities, economy, and our heritage. With our family, friends, and clients across the world, we’re all adapting to a new world.
We want reliable, resilient energy through this transition, and we’d like to halt – even reverse – climate change. But not at the expense of the very reasons energy is so important – our happiness, safety, comfort, and the economy. We can have our cake and eat it, too!
It’s all about the green.
The recent one-two punch of Covid-related economic impacts and disruptions to the international natural gas market sent gas and electricity rates through the roof during the winter of 2022-23. Ouch.
We understand the value of a dollar, and the security and economic implications of reliance on foreign energy sources. We know that sometimes boring things like insulation and flipping the lights off are fine defenses against a world gone mad. The path to “energy independence” isn’t drill baby, drill, it is through complex modernization of demand- and supply-side solutions.
We get “Green” in its financial and environmental shades.
Living our Values
We chose GreenGeeks as our web host because they support the development of renewable energy by purchasing wind-power renewable energy credits (RECs) to cover 3x the energy consumed by their servers.
Our offices were built to meet or exceed Energy Star standards for envelope, lighting, HVAC and equipment. We generate most of the power required to run our offices with rooftop solar (more than 100% on sunny days, far less during snowy winters).
We actively participate in women-owned business organizations to strengthen and diversify our economy and contribute to our community. Sharon serves as Chair on our town’s elected Planning Board.
We’re converting our yard to native flowers and shrubs to support pollinators and other local flora.
We can help
We earned our chops at large energy consultancies.
Entrepreneurs at heart, we jumped at the opportunity to launch Abacus Energy Works℠.
We loved our work and colleagues, our clients and their partners and customers.
We are thrilled to continue partnering with them, but to also serve the “little guys” and have the freedom to take on projects that weren’t a great fit for large international corporations.
Affiliations
Abacus Energy Works℠, LLC is a member of several local and international organizations, including AESP, the Association of Energy Services Professionals; BIANH, the Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire; and CENH, Clean Energy New Hampshire.
Careers
Abacus Energy Works has no openings at this time. Please upload your CV and let us know your interests. We will hold your information for consideration of both project and permanent opportunities.
Our Principals
Abacus Energy Works℠ partners with various companies and professionals to best staff your project. Our founders and principals are Sharon Mullen and Paul Higgins.
Sharon Mullen, President and Co-Founder
In 2011 Sharon was confirming a career transition to energy from a product development and e-commerce business she founded. She dove in, serving in leadership roles at AESP and on the Board of Directors for the Technology Association of Georgia’s Smart Energy Society.
She recalls the 2012 DistribuTECH that opened with keynote Ben Stein saying, “Electricity is what separates us from cavemen.” Right, but let’s make it sustainable.
Combining the audacity of someone new to the field with respect for who and what went before, she united trade organizations to partner on industry-wide studies, forged relationships to advance integration of demand side management (IDSM), and developed best practices to engage “hard to reach” small businesses.
She has kept that audacious streak alive, recently focused on making ASHRAE facility audit reports more readable to non-engineers responsible for approving projects.
Sharon has led evaluations of utility programs across North America. She delivers actionable results in an easy-to-understand way. A subject matter expert in savings attribution, net-to-gross, program delivery and operations, she contributes to the Illinois TRM.
She has published numerous articles about energy and presented and moderated panels at national conferences.
Sharon was elected to her town’s Planning Board where she works on practical responses to climate change and sea level rise in her coastal community.
In her free time you can find Sharon in the garden, kitchen, a local brew pub, at a concert, theater, or museum, reading or cheering on the Celtics and Patriots.
Sharon has a BS in Business Administration and Communications from the University of New Hampshire, a MA in History from Tufts University, and an MBA from the University of Florida.
Paul Higgins, Vice President and Co-Founder
Paul began his career as an energy consultant in 1998 at Christensen Associates in Madison, WI. His first project was evaluating a demand response pilot for SoCal Edison.
Since then, he has evaluated a wide range of demand-side management and energy efficiency programs for electric and natural gas utilities throughout North America, including traditional commercial, industrial and residential customer incentive programs, and novel “2.0” programs that rely on new technology or social psychology rather than ratepayer-funded incentives.
Paul advises and supports electric utility clients on the design, implementation, and evaluation of their grid modernization pilots and programs, such as voltage-var optimization (VVO).
While less familiar than customer-facing programs, VVO has a big impact: a Midwest client’s program produced 180,000 MWh of net energy savings in 2022, eliminated more than 127,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, and lowered the average customer bill by roughly 2 percent.
Paul also worked at KEMA (now DNV) and Navigant (acquired by Guidehouse in 2019). He is a subject matter expert in econometrics and statistics, measurement and verification of program impacts, and quantitative modeling and forecasting.
As co-chair of AESP’s Tools & Technology Topic Committee he helped plan national conferences. He’s presented papers and moderated panels at conferences sponsored by AESP, the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC), and the Wisconsin Public Utility Institute (WPUI).
Paul has a BA in Economics from the University of California, an MA in Economics from Tulane University, and has completed additional post-graduate coursework at Cornell University and the University of Washington.