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Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, has taken off like wildfire since the concept was first introduced in Berkeley, Calif. in October '07. PACE allows private property owners to pay for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects through an addition to their property tax bill, overcoming the high upfront costs that prevent most property owners from investing in such retrofits.
PACE financing has the capacity to be transformative: property owners realize immediate savings on their utility bills with minimal money down; local green jobs are created through increased demand for retrofitting goods and services; and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are dramatically reduced. With America's building stock responsible for approximately 40 percent of its demand for energy, these kinds of improvements have the potential to get us significantly closer to our GHG reduction targets. Recognizing the potential of this model, Scientific American magazine recently named PACE one of the top 20 ideas that can change the world.
States around the country are recognizing the potential of PACE. Over the past 18 months, 16 states have adopted legislative changes to allow municipalities to use property taxes as a vehicle for private property improvements of this kind. In California, PACE financing can even be used for water conservation improvements. While many states and municipalities are just beginning the process of designing their programs, several cities and counties around the country already offer PACE financing to their residents, or are well on their way.
The majority of municipalities participating in PACE are in California, which has laws in place to require GHG reductions. In addition to Berkeley, the City of Palm Desert and the County of Sonoma have launched programs. San Francisco will launch in early March. Those will be followed by over 200 more jurisdictions by this summer, including Los Angeles County, the City of San Diego, and 14 counties working together as part of the California Statewide Communities Development Authority program. Areas that have launched PACE financing have seen a high level of interest among property owners. In Sonoma County, over 1,000 applications have already been received.
The beauty of PACE is that it supports individuals who want to reduce their personal carbon footprint but might otherwise not have the resources to do so. By making reasonably-priced financing available to homeowners around the country, PACE is tapping into a pent-up demand for these services and quickly sparking increased demand for everything from tankless water heaters to insulation to solar panels and technicians who can install them.
President Obama's proposed "Cash for Caulkers" [pdf] program further encourages local governments to adopt the PACE model. This initiative aspires to retrofit 100 million homes and generate a million new jobs while reducing U.S. GHG emissions by 5 percent over the next 20 years. These incentives are expected to greatly increase the demand for energy retrofits and PACE financing.
Cash for Caulkers would allow eligible homeowners to reduce the cost of energy efficiency retrofits by up to 50 percent; used in concert with PACE financing (where available), that means a homeowner could make energy efficiency improvements with virtually no out-of-pocket costs, pay half-price for those improvements, and pay off the remainder through a 20-year assessment on their property tax bill -- while saving money on their utility bills.
PACE is one example of how well-designed public-private partnerships can stimulate economic growth by supporting individual efforts to change energy consumption patterns. As America races to address climate change, all signs point to its tremendous expansion.
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Could this be a way to build processing and marketing (local farmers markets for example) facilities for local food production to feed families, hospitals and schools?
If you are in a northern climate, I suggest adding geothermal heat pumps to the mix. I heat my house in a Minneapolis suburb with a geothermal system, and buy all of my electricity from our local "WindSource" program. I know it is not entirely accurate, but I like to say I heat my house and put nothing into the atmosphere.
Massive endemic fraud and wanton unbridled greed are ruling the world and ruining the Creation in our time. Willful blindness, hysterical deafness and elective mutism prevail over truth speech to the wealthy and powerful. But let's not talk about such things. Shhhhh!
There is a path to a good enough future for the children, I suppose, but it is not be found by recklessly pursuing the patently unsustainable path of Charles Ponzi, the path so adamantly advocated by the greed-mongering bankstas and other Masters of the Universe among us who profanely proclaim that they are the ones doing "God's work".
The EPA is changing the economics of energy as we speak; coal CO2 emissions are now to be considered under clean air rules, burn most any fuel and CO2 is released, add to that coal ash waste rules to come, many companies/facilities cannot or have not the finances to comply. Up to a third of the existing coal fired facilities will close on failure to comply or failure to afford expenses to comply. And no this is not fantasy, I work in the utility industry and see the costs first hand.
Over the course of this year there will be a number of changes to electrical power supplies in the US, they are none for the good of the consumer. The press paints a picture of the Power company eating the costs to reduce these waste streams, yes for the short term but in the future as the costs mount these same companies are allowed to recover expenses to maintain profitability, deny that and they close shop. To build new replacement wind or solar or even hydro or nuclear is at least a decade or more in the future again IF these companies can obtain financing to feed the projects, that financing cost returns to the consumer as the facilities come online IF they come online.
The final straw is when not if these companies cannot survive and the Federal bureaucracy takes them over, then look to worse effectiveness and less availability as the mismanagement becomes the ordinary along with escalating expense both in taxes and bills.
WaaaH! Poor little investor owned utilities, always looking out for the public good and such great stewards. They always really wanted to monetize those coal costs, but just didn't wanna burden their rate-payers.
And now our whole renewable energy future maybe in jeopardy if THEY cannot bring us that salvation!
Woe is me, what shall we do?!
Give me a break-- They are fortunate enough to be counted among the TOO BIG TO FAIL!
What a mess! The whole industry is too big to govern and truly pay for now.