This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Finance for Extreme Energy Savings

Finance for Extreme Energy Savings

Part 2 of a 3 part series briefing Western Riverside property owners on solar financing now available through the largest U.S. property accessed clean energy (PACE) program.

Commercial buildings in Western Riverside County are participating in one of the nation’s largest campaigns for clean energy and HelioPower is a part of it.

The Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG) has launched the nation’s largest financing program to help residential and commercial property owners pay for the installation of solar panels and other building improvements to save energy.

Find out what's happening in Murrietawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Two programs are available. The Commercial Energy Retrofit Application provides financing for small and mid-sized commercial projects that produce less than 125 kilowatts of power. Large commercial projects producing more will be financed through WRCOG’s Commercial Properties Energy Program. Both are based on California’s Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) legislation enacted through AB 811.

“There is extreme and extraordinary energy savings that can come from this,” WRCOG Executive Director Rick Bishop told a group of commercial building owners at a recent breakfast meeting at the Bear Creek Golf Club in Murrieta, CA. “We think that the net costs to businesses will be zero, in fact, it will probably be a benefit to them to install solar on their commercial buildings.”

Find out what's happening in Murrietawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

HelioPower co-hosted the meeting with Structured Finance, the company charged with financing large-scale commercial solar projects through the WRCOG program.

Electricity is a growing expense for many businesses, taking up to 30 percent of a typical office building’s operating costs, said Jean Dunn, managing director at Structured Finance. “We need to figure out ways to make our buildings more profitable, making our businesses more profitable,” he said. One solution is to lock in energy costs by going solar, he added.

“If you combined the decreasing costs of solar with the rapid rise of energy costs for commercial properties in Riverside County, you have a situation where now solar more than pays for itself,” he said.

HelioPower not only installs solar power systems on commercial buildings, it monitors and manages the system to ensure productivity throughout its 25-year warranty period, said Steve LoRusso, vp of commercial sales. “We’re going to make sure that your project is cost effective,” he said. “Our goal is to make it a cash-flow neutral investment.”

Bishop agreed.

“We anticipate that net costs will be zero,” he said. “In fact, it will probably be a benefit to companies to install solar on their commercial buildings.”

For more information about the commercial PACE program, visit www.wrcogpace.com. Visit Structured Finance at www.strucfinance.com. To learn more about the products and services available through HelioPower, visit www.HelioPower.com.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?