California Center for Sustainable Energy

What is PACE?

Property Assessed Clean Energy or “ PACE” programs, also commonly referred to as AB 811 - style programs, allow local government entities to offer sustainable energy project loans to eligible property owners. Through the creation of financing districts, property owners can finance renewable onsite generation installations and energy efficiency improvements through a voluntary assessment on their property tax bills. The assessment district approach adds a powerful new option to the clean energy finance landscape.

Property owners benefit by avoiding the upfront installation cost of renewable onsite generation systems and energy efficiency measures and eliminating concerns that they will sell the property before recovering the system investment from utility bill savings. The result is that property owners in participating jurisdictions can finance their greening efforts with a minimal level of financial risk.

Cities benefit from forming clean energy assessment districts by  providing options to its constituents to install clean energy technologies. Clean energy investments funded through these programs will assist local governments in reaching the goals of Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The PACE mechanism requires little or no investment of general funds and presents very low risk given that the loan repayment is a senior lien on the property, ahead of the mortgage itself.

CCSE’s Role: Facilitator , Educator , Administrator

CCSE administers the San Diego region’s distributed generation incentive programs, including the California Solar Initiative, the Self-Generation Incentive Program and the Solar Water Heating Pilot Program. Additionally, as a well-established resource for energy efficiency expertise, CCSE is in a perfect position to develop and administer PACE programs. As part of a formidable team of partners under the auspices of the California Statewide Community Development Authority (“California Communities”), CCSE is currently developing PACE programs in several select cities in southern California. CCSE can assist cities in various capacities, from the early stages of program design to ongoing program management and administration.

Specifically, CCSE offers:

• Program design including efficient, streamlined approaches that are cost-free to the jurisdiction
• Targeted technical assistance to City officials and program participants
• Definitions of eligible measures including solar electric and thermal, and energy efficiency ( EE)
• Contractor education, including vetting and qualification where applicable
• Marketing and outreach through collaborative, targeted multi-channel communications
• Analysis, tools and information to support property owner decision making
• Streamlined implementation through integration with renewable onsite generation and EE incentive programs
• Linkages to financing channels through a simple and secure process
• Inspection and verification of installations
• Program tracking and reporting

For updates on participating local government entities, please contact the California Center for Sustainable Energy at (858)-244-1177