KBIA --Posted Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 1:02pm
Less than a week after announcing the creation of a Clean Energy Development Board, Jefferson City officials say they’ve already received requests from citizens wanting to begin energy efficiency projects.
Jefferson City officials have created the first Clean Energy Development Board in the state. The board will help citizens and businesses fund renewable energy projects through the Property Assessed Clean Energy Act, or PACE. City officials hope PACE will encourage people to increase the efficiency of their homes.
Although the Clean Energy Development Board is still in its infancy, city officials say they’ve already received more requests than they can process from citizens hoping to increase energy efficiency in their homes. Now, their offices aren’t overloaded with inquiries. It’s just that the Clean Energy Development Board is not completely set up at this time. But once the Board is fully in place, Jefferson City, city attorney Nathan Nickolaus says officials hope the city can lead others in the state to develop similar programs.
� “For it to work, it can’t just be in Jefferson City because eventually everybody who needed those kinds of things in Jefferson City would have them. You really kind of need new people coming into the system all the time. It’s designed to spread out from Jefferson City into all the surrounding counties.”
Now, energy efficient projects can be expensive. But helping people pay these costs is pretty much what officials say the board will do. People can purchase energy efficient appliances and add that payment to their property tax rather than paying for it all up front. Property owners then have up to 20 years to repay the taxes. Nickolaus says the board will eventually be self funding. He likens the way it works to a home mortgage.
� “The board will borrow money to pay the contractors who do the work, and then they will be repaid through the property taxes coming in. When they get a large enough pool of these contracts, they will refund those with a bond issue.”�
And if you move after installing new appliances, whoever buys your home takes over the payments. Nickolaus says not only will this increase the value of people’s homes, but it will also increase the use of energy improvements.
Every project that’s approved must show a cost-benefit analysis. More energy must be saved than the project costs. Nickolaus says 24 other states currently use the PACE program.
