This report is a guide to all customer-facing financing products—products offered by a lender directly to a borrower—used to pay for energy efficiency. Intended for state and local governments that are deciding whether to start a new program, tune up and existing program, or create a Green Bank, it provides information on the full range of financing product options for target participants, the tradeoffs of various products, and potential advantages and disadvantages for different types of customers.
Showing results 1 - 45 of 45
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the intersection between solar and residential energy efficiency. Speakers include Ecolibrium3 and Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP).
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on opportunities and challenges in the Southeast and holistic, whole house approaches for working in hot and humid climates.
This publication summarizes program design, marketing, workforce development, and other key takeaways learned during Peer Exchange Calls.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on strategies that can be used to promote energy efficiency programs for manufactured homes. Speakers include Collaborative Efficiency, Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation, and East Kentucky Power Cooperative.
This Guide is designed to help state and local policymakers to take full advantage of new policy developments by providing them with a comprehensive set of tools to support launching or accelerating residential energy efficiency programs. The Guide focuses on four categories of policies that have proven particularly effective in providing a framework within which residential energy efficiency programs can thrive: incentives and financing, making the value of energy efficiency visible in the real estate market, data access and standardization, and supporting utility system procurement of energy efficiency.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on approaches to generate demand for energy efficiency upgrades at multifamily buildings.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how to generate energy upgrade customer leads and allocate those leads to contractors.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the advantages, challenges, and effective creation and management of statewide energy efficiency alliances.
Among the many benefits ascribed to energy efficiency is the fact that it can help create jobs. Although this is often used to motivate investments in efficiency programs, verifying job creation benefits is more complicated than it might seem at first. This paper identifies some of the issues that contribute to a lack of consistency in attempts to verify efficiency-related job creation. It then proposes an analytically rigorous and tractable framework for program evaluators to use in future assessments.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on combining solar and home performance energy efficiency.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on how a residential energy efficiency program can work with, for or as utilities.
SEEA created this document to inform the planning, design and delivery of early-stage energy efficiency programs in the Southeast. This document captures general concepts essential to the successful development and implementation of robust program portfolios, as well as lessons learned from prior experience on the regional and national levels.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on driving demand for energy efficiency by leveraging service calls and emergency repairs.
This report presents the underlying barriers and drivers of successful efficiency programs, deliberates upon what financing roles are most appropriate for SEEA involvement going forward, and quantifies the opportunity for energy efficiency financing in the Southeast going forward.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on bringing energy efficiency programs to schools.
This paper first details industry best practices for contest administration, including tips for developing an overall contest plan and timeline, product sponsor recruitment, building a dynamic informational website, maximizing customer participation, selecting the winning home, seamless installation management, capturing and documenting project results, conducting a high profile media open house and facilitating customer workshops that educate homeowners and strengthen trade ally relationships. This paper then presents results and key lessons learned from more than 20 contests supported with funds from local community sustainability programs, utility energy efficiency programs, and U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds between 2008 and 2012.
This peer exchange call summary focused on loan product structure and using market research to identify candidates for upgrades of occupied commercial buildings.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the benefits and challenges of program automation.
This summary from a Better Buildings Residential Network peer exchange call focused on the challenges, strategies and advantages of operating as a prime contractor.
This report explores the approaches and research needs identified in the Building Retrofit Industry and Market (BRIM) Initiative through in-depth discussion with residential energy upgrade experts including a discussion of Marketing & Outreach and the program/contractor interface.
This peer exchange call summary focused on unique fee-for-service revenues as related to program sustainability.
The lack of documented value of retrofit measures is a barrier to many homeowners doing upgrades - as most appraisals do not include energy improvements in their comparables, and the home’s future sale can prevent the homeowner from earning a return on their investment via lower energy costs. Once the industry develops a process for valuing the energy improvements, it can unlock the significant potential for retrofit work through market pricing signals (energy efficient homes are worth more) and enhanced access to capital for those purchasing a more efficient home (energy efficient homes improve borrowers’ cashflow because they cost less to operate).
This peer exchange call summary focused on assessing potential revenue streams.
This publication summarizes some of the incentives offered by Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.
This peer exchange call summary focused on sales training assistance programs for contractors.
This paper explores ways in which program administrators are using social norms to spur behavior change and, as a result, curb energy use. In recent years, home energy reports (HER) programs have applied the concept of social norms to the energy efficiency context. These feedback programs inform customers of how their energy consumption compares to their neighbors' and provide other information about their usage, with the goal of enticing customers to change their energy use behavior to improve their relative neighborhood ranking.
This peer exchange call summary focused on how programs are devising plans for creating a contractor revenue stream and potential fee structures.
This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and strategies for marketing commercial financial products and attracting financial institutions.
This peer exchange call summary focused on activities to streamline service delivery to customers.
This peer exchange call summary focused on the strategies, challenges and key interaction points with the real estate sector.
This presentation includes the brands, website addresses, and images for most of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners.
This publication outlines capital leveraging models and examples from across the country in which public funds were used to influence energy loan program capital.
This peer exchange call summary focused on the background and features of the PowerSaver loan program.
This peer exchange call summary focused on the challenges and effective combinations of quality assurance strategies.
This report analyzes the energy efficiency opportunity presented to the greater Cincinnati region. Analysis of the region and the Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance (GCEA) programs shows potential energy cost savings, including positive cash flow from energy cost savings that consistently exceed loan payments, for both residential and nonprofit participants. Investment in energy efficiency could make counties more competitive, create jobs, reduce pollution, and help homeowners and nonprofits make cross-cutting building improvements.
This report presents results, recommendations, and case studies of energy efficiency financing programs.