C-PACE Momentum is Building

There has been a lot of C-PACE movement in Virginia over the past couple of months. The summary below, from Virginia Energy Efficiency Council, provides an overview of the highlights.

Attorney General Opinion

In response to a request from Loudoun County’s Attorney, the Virginia Office of the Attorney General issued an Advisory Opinion on the Commonwealth’s C-PACE law on February 1, 2019. The opinion clarifies two key issues: 1) local governments may authorize capital providers or third-party program administrators to perform billing and collecting of C-PACE loan payments, and 2) localities may assign rights to capital providers to record and enforce the voluntary special assessment liens that underlie C-PACE deals in the case of defaults. The full letter can be viewed here.

Loudoun County

Since the release of the Attorney General’s Advisory Opinion, Loudoun County has been moving ahead at full force. The Board of Supervisors approved the County’s ordinance on February 21st. Now the County is in the procurement process for a third-party program administrator. The RFP is in development and is currently on schedule to be released later this month.

Fairfax County

Back in January of this year, the VAEEC participated on the Fairfax County C-PACE Stakeholder Group to provide feedback on the County’s draft ordinance. Since the passage of SB 1559, the County plans to add resiliency measures to this ordinance, which is now scheduled to be considered by the Board of Supervisors on March 19th.

Hampton Roads

The Virginia Energy Efficiency Council partnered with the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, the Mid-Atlantic PACE Alliance, Sustainable Real Estate Solutions (SRS), Viridiant, and the Virginia PACE Authority (VPA) to host a C-PACE workshop for the Hampton Roads region. Topics covered included the value proposition of C-PACE for the Hampton Roads region, a history of C-PACE in Virginia, program administration basics, case studies, and action steps to bring C-PACE to the area. The full presentation can be viewed here.

2019 General Assembly: passage of two C-PACE bills

Senate Bill 1559 and Senate Bill 1400 were introduced to amend the current Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) statute to add shoreline resiliency and stormwater management to the list of projects that can be financed using C-PACE. Both bills are now headed to the Governor’s desk for signature, and the new amendments will become effective on July 1, 2019.

For more information about CPACE in Virginia, visit VAEEC.org/PACE