Based on a unique public-private partnership model, #PACE financing enables building owners to make energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements with no money down and repay for them over time at a competitive, fixed interest rate through an additional, voluntary line item on their property taxes. PACE’s popularity and exponential growth is attributable to the fact that it is a win win tool which numerous stakeholders have discovered helps them address their needs, whether job creation, secure impact investing, sales and of course, addressing the climate file. And it does so while meeting the needs and desires of the PACE financing recipients.
PACENation is a national non-profit organization serving the interests and needs of over 400 member organizations that share a common goal of making PACE financing available to all building owners throughout the United States. Program is offered in two categories:
Residential PACE
Commercial PACE
Residential PACE (R-PACE)
#R-PACE financing is exclusively for single family homeowners. Since its adoption a decade ago, the owners of over 200,000 homes in California, Florida and Missouri have used PACE financing to go solar, install efficient HVAC systems and insulation, replace inefficient windows and doors, and make other qualifying upgrades, injecting over 5 billion dollars into the economy in the process.
PACE has also created more than 42,000 good-paying local jobs in communities across the United States. PACE-financed improvements are also projected to save homeowners billions of dollars on their utility bills while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by millions of tons. Importantly, because PACE financing relies on private capital, these economic and environmental benefits are achieved at no cost to local government budgets.
Commercial PACE (C-PACE)
#C-PACE financing is targeted to serve all property owners other than single family. Nationwide, 33 states have enabled legislation, 19 states have active PACE programs, and 47 PACE Programs are in operations. Overall well over 1,600 commercial, industrial, not-for-profit, multi-family housing and agricultural properties have benefited from #C-PACE financing, adding over 600 million dollars into the economy . (pace-market-data)
What’s happening in Alberta?
PACE enabling legislation was enacted in June 2018. Based on the government's projections, a PACE program should be available for your municipality to opt into by early 2019. Until more details are available, we encourage you to visit the PACE Alberta websiteto stay up to date, show your support and express interest in becoming a potential PACE project.
About PACE Alberta
PACE Alberta Co-op Ltd. is an advocacy, education and development resource organization whose goal is to have all Albertans have access to the best possible PACE program. We have been advocating and educating Albertans about PACE since 2015 and our work was instrumental in the adoption of the PACE enabling legislation, which will permit PACE financing to potentially be accessed by all Albertans (subject to their municipality adopting a PACE enabling bylaw) and for PACE financing to be used by single family home owners, developers, and owners of commercial, agricultural and institutional facilities to upgrade their buildings. What follows is our vision of what PACE could be in Alberta based on PACE lessons, best practices, and successes.
What’s Next? In this series we will see how PACE financing can change the game to meet Alberta’s Energy Efficiency goals
References and credit:
PACENation News & Blog-PACE Financing Cited as Strategy to Meet New York’s Ambitious Energy Efficiency Target
https://www.paceab.ca/commercial.pdf
http://pacenation.us/pace-market-data/#commercial
