Anne Hornyak writes for the Denver Business Journal (source):
Under Colorado’s C-PACE program, a property owner identifies a project that meets the criteria of the program, and applies to the statewide C-PACE special improvement district, called the Colorado New Energy Improvement District, or NEID, for approval to be included in the program.
Commercial property owners who want to add energy efficient, renewable energy or water conservation upgrades to their buildings have a new way to pay for them — and it’s one that won’t impact their day-to-day operating budgets.
It’s Colorado’s new C-PACE program, short for Commercial Property Accessed Clean Energy program, which launched in December 2015. An overview of the program is here.
“It leverages public infrastructure and uses the systems that are already in place, to open a financing model that generates investing opportunities for all kinds of lenders,” Gov. John Hickenlooper said at a speech at the nation’s first “PACENation Summit,” held in Denver at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel this week.
“It allows owners to spread the cost [of improvements] over more time, 20 years, and allows the users to benefit by the investments in the meantime. Business owners are well aware of the benefits of sustainability, but they are leery of the investments involved,” Hickenlooper said.
Colorado’s PACE program, which focuses on commercial buildings, aims to solve that problem, he said.
Laws allowing PACE programs have been passed in 32 states, 16 states have their programs up and running, according to PACENation, a national group that supports the PACE concepts and organized the Denver conference.
More than 2,000 cities and towns also have launched their own PACE programs, according to PACENation.
Nationally, more than $2 billion has been invested into more than 700 commercial and residential buildings via PACE programs, according to PACENation.
The group figures the commercial side of the PACE programs, nationally, have created or involved close to 3,000 jobs, a figure that rises to more than 100,000 jobs created or involved when residential PACE programs are included.
Under Colorado’s C-PACE program, a property owner identifies a project that meets the criteria of the program, and applies to the statewide C-PACE special improvement district, called the Colorado New Energy Improvement District, or NEID, for approval to be included in the program.
The application can outline which banks or other lenders the building’s owner plans to work with can finance the project, or the owner can ask PACE to help it find financing. The financing covers 100 percent of the project, including engineering studies or other work that needs to be done.
If the project is approved and completed, the upfront loan will be repaid over 20 years via a special assessment on the annual property tax bill.
The program, run by the Colorado Energy Office, launched in December 2015. A law signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper in 2013 created the program.
The program requires counties to opt into the statewide special district via a vote of the county commissioners.
So far Boulder County is the only county that’s opted into the new special district and the PACE program, but several other counties — including Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver and Jefferson counties in the Denver metro area — are considering joining. The full list of Colorado counties considering the program is here.
“This program has been very well received and I do expect to have more counties opt into the program in the future,” said Paul Scharfenberger, at a panel held during the national summit that focused on Colorado’s experience.
Scharfenberger is the chairman of the board of Colorado’s NEID, the special district set up to run the C-PACE program.
More counties are expected to opt into the program if a bill to make some minor changes to the 2013 statute is approved during this legislative session, he said.
The district also works with county accessors offices to place assessments, collect the money, remit the money to the district, which then remits the money back to the lenders who made the original loans, Scharfenberger said.
“This is a public-private partnership,” he said.
“We’re leveraging the infrastructure but not the coffers of the state and a statewide approach offers consistency across the state,” he said.
Boulder County currently has a few projects under consideration, he said.