San Francisco currently offers local solar incentives in the U.S. for residents and businesses through the GoSolarSF program. This local incentive, when paired with the federal tax credit and the California Solar Initiative, cuts the cost of an average residential solar installation by approximately half. Since the inception of GoSolarSF in July of 2008, monthly solar applications have spiked in San Francisco by over 300 percent.
The San Francisco Clean Energy Loan program will complement GoSolarSF by providing borrowing options for residents to cover the remaining cost of their solar installations, and will also be available to help fund urban small scale wind projects, as well as energy efficiency upgrades. Building on the success of GoSolarSF, the City is working to help residents make energy upgrades on their buildings, so that even more residents can green their homes and businesses in a financially responsible manner. The result will be lower utility bills for local consumers and the greening of San Francisco's renewable energy portfolio.
With the recent tightening of the credit markets, home equity and consumer financial products have become harder to obtain for many people who otherwise have above average credit scores and traditionally pay their debts on time. The Clean Energy Loan Program seeks to address this challenge. Loans will be attached to the building rather than the borrower-a key element of making these loans feasible for homeowners. Residents will repay the loans over 20 years through a special tax on their property tax bills. By providing greater security for the lenders, the program in turn will allow them to make more loans available, to more people, on more competitive terms.
"We need to make renewable energy and energy efficiency affordable for people of all incomes," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "While our solar incentive program has been dramatically successful in increasing local solar installations, this low-interest loan program is the missing piece of the puzzle. It will provide San Francisco homeowners access to the remaining funding they need to make energy improvements to their buildings."
The RFP issued for San Francisco's Clean Energy Loan program, which calls for a program as large as $20 million, seeks a private sector partner or partners to fund the program and assist the city in its administration. When implemented, it will be the largest such program in the U.S. to date. A pilot solar loan program using this model of lending is successfully underway in Berkeley, California.
