“About-PACE!”

You’ve heard from us several times about Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs, those innovative financing plans that are spreading rapidly across the country from their birthplace in Berkeley, California.  In a PACE program a city or regional authority raises funds, often with a tax-free bond, and citizens apply to have solar arrays installed on their property at no initial cost to themselves.  The municipal authority pays for the installation and recovers its expenditure from homeowners through property taxes over a lengthy period.

These programs have proved so popular that the enabling legislation has spread to some sixteen states, but now the ever-popular banking industry threatens to throw a wrench in the works.  It seems that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are moving toward prohibiting their mortgagors from participating in PACE programs.

Rosalind Jackson and Annie Carmichael of Vote Solar have written in Greentechmedia  about this threatening tactic.  As you will see from their excellent article, this groundbreaking way of funding clean energy and energy efficiency is in danger of being proscribed by banking concerns.  And that really concerns us.

We’ll keep you posted.