PACE- Property Assessed Clean Energy Makes Its Debut in Travis County
by Ross Pumfrey
PACE is an innovative financing program that enables owners of commercial and industrial properties to pay long-term, low-cost loans for water conservation, energy-efficiency improvements, and renewable retrofits through a voluntary assessment on their property. A 2013 Texas law allows municipalities and counties to work with private sector lenders and property owners to finance qualified improvements.
The first to adopt this program was Travis County and business property owners will now be able to pay back installments on long-term financing through a voluntary assessment on their property. On March 24 the Travis County Commissioners unanimously adopted “PACE-in-a-Box” as a county ordinance (see the report prepared by county staff as part of the process). This model ordinance was developed by Keeping PACE in Texas, an organization supported by a wide variety of groups (see the impressive list).
Charlene Heydinger, executive director of Keeping PACE in Texas, has recently established an additional, independent, non-profit organization called the Texas PACE Authority, which is available to any local government that decides to approve Pace-in-a Box and wishes to use an experienced third party as the administrator of the program in its area.
The Texas PACE Authority was chosen by Travis County as its administrator, and the Authority’s managing director, Jonathon Blackburn, reported that he has already been contacted by numerous companies that believe they will soon have qualifying projects in the county.
Other Counties
Elsewhere in the state, the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council (LRGVDC), which serves as the regional council of governments for three counties (Cameron, Hidalgo, and Willacy) and the 44 cities that are in those counties, is planning a workshop on PACE to take place in August.
The workshop will begin in the late afternoon of August 19 and run through noon on August 21, at the the Isla Grand Hotel in South Padre Island. Funding for the workshop comes from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Organizers are putting together panels of experts from various sectors that will explain the basics of PACE ordinances for counties and cities, how the financing would work, and how vendors of the technologies can participate. They also believe that at least one, and perhaps both, of the area’s two state senators, Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa and Eddie Lucio, Jr. will be present to provide support. Both legislators voted for the enabling legislation at the state level.
The county judges for the LRGVDC’s three counties all sit on its board, so approval to move ahead with the workshop has observers optimistic that each county will adopt the PACE-in-a-Box ordinance soon after the workshop.
In addition to Travis County and the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Blackburn (director of the Texas PACE Authority) expressed confidence that a couple of other metropolitan areas in the state will see progress on adoption of the ordinance by the end of 2015.
Ross Pumfrey is Vice-Chairman of the TXSES Board of Directors and has recently retired from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin.