Clean Energy Municipal Financing (CEMF) allows property owners (residential and commercial) to install electric and thermal solar systems and make energy efficiency improvements to their buildings. These improvements are financed through a special fee on their property tax bills that transfers to the next owner upon property resale.
This program, pioneered by cities including California’s Berkeley and Palm Desert—now under review in Boulder, Colorado; Burlington, Vermont; Austin Texas; and other locations—can be applied to energy efficiency measures alone, to renewable energy alone, or to a combination of efficiency and renewable generation. Repayment over 20 or 25 years is a natural timetable, and the payments go with the property, not the individual, so that clean energy and energy efficiency become investment opportunities.
For more information, go to: http://rael.berkeley.edu/berkeleyfirst