Thursday, August 4, 2011

Between 2008 and 2010, twenty seven states passed legislation enabling Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. Local governments were then allowed to raise funds for homeowners and businesses to use for renewable or energy efficient systems. The owner would then repay the lending agency eventually through property tax. Shortly after being set up it was put on hold by the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) which considered PACE programs loans instead of tax assessments and would not support mortgages for these properties. Recently, the PACE Protection Act of 2011, has been introduced, and has been quickly gathering bipartisan support. Its main goal will be to get PACE programs back up and running and more homeowners and businesses using alternative energy sources.
PACE has great potential here in Plymouth, which has been part of the Beacon Communities program. Last year Plymouth as well as Nashua and Berlin, started a combined effort to reduce energy usage by modifying buildings to be more energy efficient.

Check out http://www.betterbuildingsnh.com/ and http://pacenow.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/HR-2599-PACE-Protection-Act-of-2011.pdf
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