Starting April 4, residents of Chebeague, Vinalhaven and North Haven became eligible to receive low-interest loans of up to $15,000 from Efficiency Maine to weatherize and make energy efficiency improvements to their homes. The opportunity comes with the launch of Maine PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy), a revolving loan program designed to stimulate the demand for energy efficiency by providing homeowners with the capital they need to invest in the upfront costs of home weatherization. Applicants who can show, with the results of an energy audit, that proposed improvements have a projected total energy savings of 25% or more will receive PACE loans fixed at an interest rate of 4.99% for a term of up to 15 years. The initial 30% of the loan will be administered to cover the cost of down payments, while the remainder will be released upon completion of the project.
Within the last six months, the towns of Chebeague, Vinalhaven and North Haven have all passed PACE ordinances, giving island residents access to the $20 million revolving loan fund that will seed the PACE program. According to Maine Law, municipalities must pass the ordinance before homeowners can participate. Although PACE loans do not take precedence over home mortgages or property taxes (and towns incur no liability or cost in the process), they are tied to the property within the municipality, rather than the person: if a homeowner decides to sell before the loan is paid off, it may simply be transferred to the next owner. As of mid-March, 57 towns across Maine have passed PACE ordinances, representing 41 percent of the state’s population. “We’re trying to create a uniform platform for the entire state” says Dana Fischer, Residential Program Manager at Efficiency Maine.
This focus on consistency and program centralization is largely what defines PACE. Efficiency Maine will handle all applications, helping homeowners find energy auditors and certified weatherization contractors and guiding individuals through the process of setting up and paying back a loan. The only responsibility for the town is to participate in a loosely defined education and outreach process. “We recognize that municipalities have dramatically different capabilities” says Fischer, who emphasized that individual towns may use various methods to spread the word about the program and the key is being able to point interested homeowners in the direction of Efficiency Maine. Fischer also noted that Efficiency Maine is currently getting ready to send out informational program materials to all the towns that have so far passed PACE ordinances.
It still remains to be seen what the level of individual interest in PACE loans will be out on Chebeague, Vinalhaven and North Haven. As far as each town’s involvement, one goal in passing PACE was to make sure that residents will have access to the program if they would like to participate. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t leave people out by not passing the ordinance” says Joe Stone, North Haven Town Administrator. A similar thought was expressed by Eric Dyer, the Town Administrator on Chebeague Island, who commented that the PACE ordinance “was really just an enabling ordinance . . . [I]f we [could] do anything to help residents of the community save money through energy work, there was no reason not to [pass it].”
From the perspective of Efficiency Maine, this combination of saving money by saving energy is one of the main goals of the PACE program, which is set to be in place as a revolving loan fund for at least the next decade. “This whole project is very much an economic driver,” says Fischer, who would like to see Mainers spend less of their disposable income on the over 300-million gallons of home heating oil burned in the state each year. For island residents who face some of the highest energy costs in the country, PACE could be one important way to make such energy savings more accessible to the average homeowner.
However, while the program enters its initial phase, there are some questions about who it will reach and how effective it will be. “The individual is going to have to come forward and do the application,” says Marjorie Stratton, Vinalhaven town manager, who believes it is important that the program be available to people on the island but is waiting to see how many homeowners will show an interest in PACE. Dyer similarly noted that PACE is “one of those programs that has to sell itself” on Chebeague and that although Efficiency Maine’s open directive for municipalities to participate in an outreach process “allows the town to take more control,” taking active steps to educate island residents about the program is going to be one of the biggest challenges.
For more information about PACE, readers can visit Efficiency Maine’s website at www.efficiencymaine.com/PACE.
Birgitta Polson is the Island Institute’s Community Energy Fellow.