San Francisco rolled out this week the nation’s largest financing initiative for residents to turn their homes green.
The $150 million effort will raise money from bonds, and require homeowners who retrofit their houses to improve energy efficiency to repay the debt through a property tax-type levy.
San Francisco's $150 million home energy efficiency initiative is the start of a broad state expansion of PACE, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, financing.
By the third quarter, the program will stretch across much of California. As many as 28 million residents will have access to the so-called PACE, or Property Assessed Clean Energy, financing by the end of September, says Cisco DeVries, president of Renewable Funding, which helps run the program.
So will the money awaken the still nascent home retrofit industry? Will it attract new companies and create new jobs while saving energy?
The answer, according to Matt Golden, founder and president of the retrofit company Recurve, is a definite yes. Golden estimates the number of retrofitters and related companies in the market will double or triple in a year or two. And employment should follow the rise.
“There are a lot of companies on the sidelines” waiting for the market to blossom, including some well established contractors, Golden said in an interview this week.
Today, the San Francisco Bay Area has about a dozen retrofitters and perhaps as many as 20 companies doing energy audits. Construction jobs, as elsewhere in California, are off by about a third and the energy retrofit business has been cut in a half. Suppliers to the industry have suffered as well. Insulation plants are running at 40 percent capacity.
Financing has always been the challenge facing the retrofit industry, says Golden. Until PACE, homeowners have had to rely on home-equity credit lines and other general borrowing, with rates of 12 percent or more and 15-year repayment periods. PACE will offer a 7 percent interest rate and a 20-year payback period.
“The demand isn’t here yet” for retrofits, Golden says. “I believe you have to stimulate this industry. PACE is a huge part of that.”
Still, the program has drawn some criticism from rooftop solar installers, who fear it could steal business from them. Solar incentives help spark that industry, responds Golden. Now there will be greater balance between the two businesses.
[...] Francisco kicked off the nation’s largest PACE program in April and hopes to use the $2 million it won from the California Energy Commission to [...]
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