Public schemes for energy efficient refurbishment

Public plans for energy efficient refurbishment are put in place by states to encourage building owners to renovate their properties in a way that increases their energy performance. As financing represents the most important obstacle to this type of renovation, the plans favour financial incentives in the form of loans or grants. Various institutions can be involved in the process, such as ministries, banks, firms, or energy services companies (ESCOs).

A number of countries have implemented such plans: the United States, France, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, Estonia, and others.

The concept of PACE (Property-Assessed Clean Energy) was inspired by “solar bonds” program implemented in San Francisco in 2001. It was meant to overcome the major barrier to the installation of solar and energy efficiency retrofits in commercial or residential properties: high up-front costs. The principle consisted in “on-tax bill solar and efficiency financing,” whereby repayment of the investment in measures is made through a property tax assessment.

PACE originated in 2008 with pilot programs in California, Colorado, and New York, that focused primarily on energy efficiency upgrades to single family homes. The first actual PACE program was carried out in Berkeley, California, and the state passed the first PACE-enabling legislation in 2008.

In the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, on July 30, 2008, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) was created to supervise enterprises and banks (the "regulated entities"), after Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association)'s bankruptcy. At the time, most homes had a market value below the volume of contracted loans, following the burst of the housing bubble. In July 2010, the FHFA issued the first of many directives that effectively ban Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from buying or holding mortgages with PACE assessments. PACE therefore shifted its focus over the next year toward commercial, industrial, multi-family and agricultural buildings and properties.

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Wikipedia