SMART Energy Program

Virtually all of us want to eliminate waste and conserve resources, particularly our financial resources. In today’s economy, reducing spending and increasing income are a priority. This is true whether you are a municipality, homeowner or business owner.

Unfortunately, decreasing our spending by merely cutting our energy and water usage is not practical for most of us. What is available is modifying the products we use to consume less power or water.

However, current financing structures, such as conventional loans, mortgage or home equity loans, home equity lines of credit, leases, and power purchase agreements (PPAs) present the buyer with high upfront costs or non-transferable long-term commitments.

To help rectify this problem, since 2008, more than a dozen states, including the pioneers, California and Colorado, have passed legislation that authorizes municipalities to make Property Assessed Clean Energy ("PACE") financing available to property owners for the installation of renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements. Under a PACE program, homeowners and commercial property owners borrow monies to pay for these improvements and then repay the loans through a special tax or assessment on the improved property. Thus, the high upfront costs and the non-transferable commitment issues are both solved by implementing a PACE program.

BEST PRACTICES

The SMART Energy Program provides an off-the-shelf PACE program template (“SMART Energy Program”) designed for municipalities. The SMART Energy Program includes a full set of program deliverables that incorporate best practices utilized by other municipalities, with turn-key services provided by PowerHouse and its partners. This ensures your program builds on the experience of other programs, while at the same time allowing your municipality to modify the program to meet your unique requirements.

The SMART Energy template incorporates renewable energy products (solar PV, solar thermal, etc.), energy efficiency products (heating systems, cooling systems, lighting, windows, insulation, etc.) and water efficiency products (low-flow toilets, weather based sprinkling systems, etc.). Our clients prioritize potential eligible products based on the derived benefits which may include: costs savings, energy savings, greenhouse gas emission reductions, air quality improvements, and water usage reductions.