Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE)

Information about the upcoming North Coast Energy Indepedence Program's Property Assessed Clean Energy Program (PACE) is rapidly changing as the program design faces various legal and legislative hurdles. As of October 2010, PACE programs remain stalled in most states and counties until issues are resolved.

In the meantime, new programs are currently being designed to distribute funds previously designated for California PACE programs. Information will be added to this page as it becomes available. The text below is being retained to provide history context for PACE to date in Humboldt County.

Note: The following text is for historical reference only

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 (for efficiency and/or renewable energy) 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.

As part of the Federal ARRA stimulus funding package, the California Energy Commission (CEC) issued an State Energy Program (SEP) RFP for municipal financing programs. The County of Humboldt was the lead applicant for a seven-county consortium known as the North Coast Energy Independence Program (NCEIP). NCEIP counties include Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt, Trinity, Del Norte, and Siskiyou. The NCEIP proposal was successful, and was awarded a grant for program start-up costs in the amount of approximately $4.4 million.

In Humboldt County RCEA will be the prime program implementer. At some point later this year we will be adding staff to assist with program management and delivery. The number or classification of these staff is not yet known.

The County of Humboldt has not yet finalized a contract for this program with the CEC. That is expected to take at least sixty days from now. Program-specific implementation details have not yet been worked out. Until a CEC contract is finalized, no County staff time can be devoted to this effort, so details will not be known for at least three or four months. The proposal calls for program roll-out to the public by the end of September, but given the apparent time needed to execute a CEC contract, the end of this year is more realistic.

RCEA's responsibilities will include launching a robust local marketing effort for this program. We will inform the public of program specifics at the appropriate time later this year. Those wishing to read the NCEIP proposal can download it from the CEC's web site: http://www.energy.ca.gov/recovery/awards/PON-400-09-401_Final_Proposals/index.php

Please be advised that this is a very large zip file (~30 MB). The full proposal is abut 400 pages. We have one printed copy which interested people may read here at RCEA.