Description
Minnesota Property Assessed Clean Energy (MinnPACE)
The City of Saint Paul has a joint powers agreement with MinnPACE, a Saint Paul Port Authority division, which allows commercial property owners to roll energy efficiency and renewable energy investments into a voluntary tax assessment. With the unique structure of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), qualified borrowers receive 100 percent financing for both hard and soft costs, generally provided up-front, with no payments due until May of the following year. Borrowers also benefit from an extended term (up to 20 years) with a fixed interest rate.
The unique characteristic of PACE assessments is that the assessment is attached to the property rather than an individual. The PACE structure overcomes financial challenges that hinder the adoption of such projects by eliminating upfront costs, providing low-cost, long-term financing, and making it easy for building owners to transfer payment obligations to tenants and new owners in the case of sale.
MinnPACE is available for both new construction and retrofits. It is a fit for commercial, industrial, nonprofit, and multi-family (5+ units) properties.
Learn more here: https://www.sppa.com/portfinancing/minnpace
Data from the Port Authority which relates to the PACE program:
Transactions range between $50K and $6 million*
- Total energy savings equates to 81 billion BTUs or 24 million kilowatt hours (per year)
- Energy savings are comparable to powering 2,142 average sized homes (per year)
Port Authority has had several projects throughout the years that have saved over 81 10^15 Btu per year. See graph below for the projects per year and the indicator below for the total Btu's saved.
