CitiesGoGreen » financing

PACE: help for local government green energy programs

Judith — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:23:29 +0000

San Fransico solar panels

San Fransico solor panels

In this tight economy your city may be looking for new ways to more efficiently spend your financial resources and attract green jobs, while making your community more livable. You might want to take a look at what San Francisco is doing.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom recently unveiled GreenFinanceSF, a $150 million program modeled on Berkeley’s PACE program. This program will help green the city’s homes and businesses by financing the installation of solar panels, energy efficiency retrofits, and water conservation improvements. The program will reduce the carbon footprint of the city, conserve water, and create a greener environment for its citizens.According to Grist blogger Todd Woody, “It’s the latest and largest iteration of the Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, model pioneered by the city of Berkeley across the Bay and now spreading across the country.” Other major California cities and counties plan to offer municipal funding in the near future.

The PACE model was developed by Cisco DeVries when he was chief of staff to Berkeley’s city mayor. He has since co-founded Renewable Funding to help cities and counties in California and other communities create green funding initiatives. Best of all, there is no cost to participating cities.

While PACE uses land-secured municipal finance, two characteristics make the program unique: 1) property owner participation is 100% voluntary and only those property owners who choose to participate repay the bond, 2) the bond proceeds pay for preapproved clean energy and, in some cases, water improvement on participating properties.

It may be time for your city to evaluate the benefits of bringing a PACE style program to your area.

Seeking Cities to Test Solar Streetlights

Daimon — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:27:12 +0000

Eco Alternative Solutions, LLC is looking for 25 large US cities to participate in a no-cost 90-day trial of its Integrated Solar Series (ISS). ISS is an innovative solar-powered street light system. The company says ISS lights have been “vigorously tested” over the last year and half and placing lights in 25 selected cities will provide data from different ambient conditions.

The solar unit replaces the city’s current lighting system on 30 foot utility poles commonly used on residential and busy streets. Solar power is stored in batteries, and at dusk the the unit powers up white or yellow LEDs for 8 to 12 hours of lighting.

CEO Shane Chapin has some cost projections: “In a town with 50,000 lights the current monthly expense is about $215,400 based on running the lights for 10 hours per day. Switching to ISS generates average savings of about $158,400. Cost savings depend on the available sunlight and we can assess the expected savings for each community.”

Eco Alternative Solutions expects to be able to ship “upwards of 500,000 units per month” from US manufacturers in different regions of the country by mid-2010. The company is also prepared to help cities comply with the American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for funding assistance, and has financing options that keep payments at or below current energy expenses.

Cities wishing to participate in the trial program can contact Chapin at 217-381-8901.

$3 Billion Bond Proposed for Green School Retrofits in Washington State

Daimon — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:36:46 +0000

SightlineDaily reports on a potentially good idea: Washington state Representative Hans Dunshee proposes that the state issue bonds for $3 billion, which would employ some 90,000 people to make “safety, health, and energy efficient improvements to public facilities in all public K-12 school districts, community and technical colleges, state universities, regional universities, [and] The Evergreen State College.”

The bonds would be paid back from energy savings. Besides the health and learning benefits of green schools to the occupants, the lower carbon footprint, permanent savings on energy costs, the tens of thousands of jobs and increased business in the state, the sales and business taxes earned back by the state both directly and indirectly, the economic stimulus to any number of local businesses in every community statewide, the green skills gained by workers and contractors statewide, and the great example, would it work? Ah, the pesky bureaucratic details.