Pioneering Energy-as-a-Service, ENFRA blends heritage, innovation, and customer focus to lead sustainable infrastructure transformation
With a remarkable legacy spanning over 100 years, energy infrastructure solutions provider ENFRA has redefined what it means to be an industry pioneer. Founded in 1919, ENFRA is recognized for leading the EaaS (Energy-as-a-Service) revolution – a unique business model centered around exceptional asset management and collaborative client relationships. From operational management to maintenance, engineering, fabrication, and construction, ENFRA offers the full package, delivered with unparalleled customer satisfaction.
Today, ENFRA proudly holds a leading position within the EaaS and energy infrastructure sphere. With almost 3000 projects active at any given time and more than 20 long-term partnerships nationwide, ENFRA has guaranteed over $87 million in utility savings for customers each year and has no intention of slowing down. New Energy Today sits down with Rob Guthrie, ENFRA’s Chief Executive Officer, who provides a deep dive into the company’s history and heritage, as well as discussing the value of its unique EaaS model in terms of thought leadership, client satisfaction and the company’s role in the wider energy transition.
“ENFRA is one of the largest privately-owned energy infrastructure firms in North America. We started in southern Louisiana in 1919 as a plumbing contractor, so we’re now in our 106th year,” Rob begins. “We think of our story in chapters. The first chapter runs over the course of 95 years, from 1919 to 2014. We had different operating companies that formed at different points over those 95 years. Our electrical group was founded in 1945 in New Iberia, Louisiana, our mechanical group in 1957 in New Orleans, and our engineering group in 1995 in Little Rock, Arkansas. We eventually had five independently managed companies until we combined those entities in 2014, with the express intention of becoming the only vertically integrated energy service provider in North America.
“Chapter two involved proving our EaaS model to the market. Luckily for us, we had 95 years of operating history and a lot of deep relationships with previous customers, for whom we felt the model would make a lot of sense. We think of chapter two as a seven-year period ending when CVC DIF Capital Partners acquired a majority position in the company at the very end of 2021, which marked the beginning of our current chapter. We proved the EaaS concept in chapter two and the focus for chapter three is to scale. We’re now scaling this model from coast to coast, standardizing our processes and growing the concept.”
Whilst the company boasts an illustrious history full of innovation, experience, and expertise, the ‘ENFRA’ name is still quite new; up until May of this year, ENFRA’s customers and partners would’ve known the company as Bernhard. Marking a fresh new chapter for the company, the rebrand presents a bold new identity, one that’s representative of its continued market leadership in sustainable energy infrastructure solutions. Alongside the new name comes a new visual identity, a new logo and a new tagline: ‘Create. Sustain. Empower’.
Rob comments: “Our rebrand was completed on May 1st of 2025. The rebrand wasn’t a reaction to anything in our past; we did it more as a way of embracing the identity into which we’ve evolved. It was a future-facing decision, and the fact of the matter is that we’ve undergone more growth in the last ten years than most companies our age. To the outside world, it may have seemed like a sudden move, but for us, it was in the works for 18 months. I would say that it was executed seamlessly from our side; our team did a great job of bringing the rebrand to life.”
Though a relatively new business model, ENFRA is already proving the benefits of EaaS through its vast scope of capabilities and solutions. ENFRA’s services are driven by its ability to develop and optimize its customers’ assets by providing a fully integrated, turnkey solution that leverages all facets of the company’s diverse realm of expertise. The company delivers its mechanical, structural, and energy engineering services to the highest quality, sustaining the functionality of customers’ assets through dedicated management and maintenance. Rob elaborates on the structure of ENFRA’s EaaS model and the extra value added through its client-centric approach.
“EaaS is a broad term. Fundamentally, you’re transferring risk away from the customer to the vendor, and you’re generally converting CapEx to OpEx. You’re relieving the customer of the CapEx obligation by providing them access to assets 24/7, but it’s your responsibility to maintain those assets; it’s an opportunity for the customer to shed risk that many view as non-core,” he explains. “Our transaction has the same sort of skeleton that any service offering would have, but we bring to it the ability to monetize our customers’ infrastructure. That allows the customer to unlock the value of their assets, catalyzing design-build improvements and often lifting the customer’s liquidity metrics.
“We always guarantee that our improvements are going to yield a certain reduction in our customers’ energy demand and consumption, and it becomes our job to operate and maintain that infrastructure. We make sure to provide a tailored solution for our customers based on their own business conditions. Once we developed a unique solution that resonated with our customers, the next question was how to build the internal capacity to scale it effectively. We’re now landing on the other side of that journey. We’re continuing to grow and it’s really exciting.”
Aside from its comprehensive model, what truly sets ENFRA apart is its passion for customer service. Its expert team is on call 24/7 to keep customers’ assets protected, optimized and running at peak performance. Over the course of its 100-year tenure, one of the qualities that has helped ENFRA to triumph is its ability to continuously adapt to customer needs. A key component of this has been constant investment in new technologies and innovations; one of the most notable being its proprietary software, ENFRA Connect®.
“We pride ourselves on being relentless about the customer experience. It’s very ingrained in our culture that when the customer needs something, we’re responsive – no matter what time it is,” Rob says. “We have a software tool called ENFRA Connect® that is deployed across every plant. It produces regular reports on energy performance and detects faults, so customers know if anything in the plant needs to be repaired or optimized.”
With the global pursuit for clean energy solutions well underway, it’s clear that ENFRA will continue to play a vital role in the wider energy transition. Building on its existing legacy and stellar reputation, the company will remain a powerhouse for environmental good – all whilst empowering its customers in their own sustainability missions.
“We’re in the midst of a company-wide digital transformation, with a focus on building the right team and leveraging AI to strengthen our management foundation. At the same time, our top priority remains filling key positions and maintaining the capacity to deliver exceptional customer experiences. We’ve had tremendous success in recruiting new talent to ENFRA and we’re ahead of schedule in terms of our capacity planning,” Rob concludes.
“As the market leader in the US healthcare industry, our EaaS business is anchored by a loyal base of subscribers and continues to gain momentum. It’s becoming the centerpiece of our business, unlocking new opportunities for our legacy and more traditional business lines. Today, we’re in an aggressive growth phase, focused on strengthening customer relationships and expanding our reach, laying the groundwork for an even stronger future. It’s a very exciting time.”