Public financing for EE wins another convert

San Francisco is the latest municipality to join the so-called Property Assessed Clean Energy financing revolution. For you without a Policy Geek degree, that means the city can now issue bonds, lend the proceeds to businesses and homeowners for energy efficiency upgrades and collect the repayment on the property’s tax bill.

This gives energy efficiency a significant leg up on two of its more intractable foes: the often high upfront cost of meaningful energy-saving upgrades and the fear that property owners won’t hang on to the building long-enough for the energy savings to pay back the project costs. With PACE, the lender (in San Francisco’s case, a citywide tax district) delivers the up-front money and the loan is repaid with an assessment on the property, not the property owner. Owner sells? No problem. The lender keeps getting paid through property taxes paid by the new owner. And each party enjoys the energy savings while they own the building.

Seventeen states have passed legislation enabling local governments to deploy some form of PACE lending, including Oregon in the Northwest. Legislation is pending in the Washington Legislature this session, though its prospects are far from certain. Idaho’s department of commerce and members of the legislatures energy committees have begun to talk about bringing Idaho into the PACE fold, but no bills are pending.

Seven

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