Residential Clean Energy Archives - Inclusive Prosperity Capital

$2.5 million, 12+ year guarantee will expand IPC’s Smart-E Residential Green Lending Program

CIGP Closes Multimillion Dollar Guarantee to Inclusive Prosperity Capital (“IPC”) to Expand Residential Green Lending to Low/Moderate-Income and BIPOC Homeowners The $2.5 million, 12+ year guarantee will expand IPC’s Smart-E Residential Green Lending Program January 23, 2023 – In late December 2022, Community Investment Guarantee Pool (“CIGP”) announced the issuance of a $2.5 million, 12+ year guarantee to expand Inclusive Prosperity Capital Inc.’s (“IPC”) Smart-E Residential Green Lending Program (“Smart-E Program” or “Program”) and to demonstrate that unsecured residential green lending to predominantly low/moderate-income and/or Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) homeowners can be a successful business line for credit unions and other community lenders. CIGP’s guarantee will start at $1 million and expand to $2.5 million as the Smart-E program ramps up. IPC projects that CIGP’s guarantee will ultimately credit enhance nearly 2,000 Smart-E loans over the next four years, totaling about $24 million. The Smart-E Program creates greater access to the residential clean energy and energy efficiency marketplace for community-based lenders, local contractors, and low- and moderate-income (LMI) homeowners through a comprehensive program that includes:• Loan product and process standardization• Online project management tool (called NGEN)• Contractor screening and oversight. “We are thrilled to be able to leverage CIGP’s guarantee to bring our Smart-E Program to more communities of color and low and moderate-income homeowners,” said Kerry O’Neill, IPC’s CEO. “CIGP’s support has allowed us to launch our Smart-E national expansion and reflects IPC’s belief that everyone should have access to the benefits of clean energy and resilience, especially those who have been most impacted by climate change and historically have not been well served by traditional lending.” “Partnering with IPC and community development credit unions to enable low-income and BIPOC homeowners to make green upgrades demonstrates the catalytic value of CIGP’s guarantees for climate equity,” said Jim Baek, CIGP’s Executive Director. He added, “As investments in sustainability accelerate with the enactment of new federal programs, we’re hopeful that initiatives like Smart-E provide the road map and market insights needed to facilitate a just green transition.” “Inclusiv is proud to connect high-impact credit union lenders with the Smart-E program that will dramatically expand clean energy and energy efficiency lending to low- and moderate-income people and households,” said Cathie Mahon, President/CEO, Inclusiv. The model for the Smart-E Program operates in three states (Connecticut, Michigan, and Colorado) with 18 active lenders participating. Approved contractors offer 40 different green upgrades, including solar, energy efficiency, HVAC, and more. To date, $500 million in these unsecured loans have been originated, helping over 35,000 homeowners, 45% of whom are LMI. IPC is now partnering with Inclusiv, the largest membership organization for Community Development Credit Unions (CDCU), and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), as a data and training resource, to expand the Smart-E platform nationally. This expansion is starting in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas where Inclusiv has 40 CDCU members and another 55 credit unions that are part of its Center for Resiliency and Clean Energy network. These 95 credit unions serve 5.6 million members in the three states with the CDCUs primarily serving LMI and/or BIPOC communities. Nationally, Inclusiv’s network of credit unions serves over 18 million members in various LMI urban, rural, and reservation-based communities and represents over $261 billion of community-controlled assets. The Smart-E Loans are unsecured, and CIGP will only backstop loans to borrowers with FICO credit scores below 720. If successful, CIGP’s guarantee will demonstrate the degree to which unsecured consumer green lending can be made to a broader set of homeowners beyond the current market focus on higher income borrowers. While green lending in the US is still primarily focused on upper- and upper-middle-income, largely white, borrowers, IPC’s national expansion of the Smart-E Program, starting in the Southwest, is designed to “democratize” access to green loans; at least 50% of CIGP backed Smart-E loans are expected to be to LMI and BIPOC households. In addition to yielding climate benefits from the reduced use of fossil fuels, successful Smart-E installations will lower energy bills, increasing housing stability and property values for homeowners. About CIGP The Community Investment Guarantee Pool (CIGP) is a financing tool launched in December 2019 by impact investing organizations to create a pooled commitment of financial guarantees for intermediaries in affordable housing, small business and climate finance. CIGP accelerates community investments by more fully leveraging philanthropic balance sheets for mission. The initial guarantors that helped make CIGP possible are The Kresge Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The California Endowment, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Common Spirit Health, Gary Community Investments, Jessie Ball duPont Fund, Phillips Foundation, Seattle Foundation, Virginia Community Capital, and Weingart Foundation. Since launch, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Arnold Ventures, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation and the Sierra Club Foundation have also joined as guarantors. Learn more about CIGP by watching this short video produced by The Kresge Foundation. About LOCUS Impact Investing LOCUS serves as program manager for the Community Investment Guarantee Pool. LOCUS is a national non-profit consulting organization and registered investment advisor that works with foundations and mission-driven investors wherever they are on their local impact investing journey to help them create lasting, meaningful change in their communities. LOCUS partners with mission-driven institutions to unlock more of their assets and deploy dollars to catalyze equitable economic development and make community-informed investments guided by innovative, effective and equitable practices. LOCUS is a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit, VCC Social Enterprises. For more information about LOCUS visit: https://locusimpactinvesting.org/. About Inclusive Prosperity Capital (IPC)Inclusive Prosperity Capital, Inc. (“IPC”) is a not-for-profit investment fund scaling clean energy financing solutions that channels investment capital to program partners in communities that need it most. As a spin-out and strategic partner of the Connecticut Green Bank, IPC is focused on scaling and expanding its successful model nationwide by accessing mission-driven capital and partnerships. IPC operates at the intersection of community development, clean energy finance, and climate impact. Link to article

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During the opening plenary of the ACEEE Finance Forum, Chief Strategy Officer, James McIntyre spoke to the work our team is doing in Ithaca with support of our partners.

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The panel highlighted the exciting new endeavor that the City of Ithaca is embarking on with IPC partner BlocPower, to help the City reach the building decarbonization goals set under its Green New Deal, targeting carbon neutrality by 2030. BlocPower is a climate tech startup creating smarter, greener, healthier buildings for all by reducing the barriers to money-saving, quality of-life-improving green building retrofits including installation of heat pump systems. BlocPower’s innovative financing model increases access to heat pump technology for low-to-moderate income and environmental justice communities. Through an energy service agreement, a lease on the equipment that includes operations and maintenance, BlocPower delivers an affordable solution for building electrification retrofits. The panel focused on the role of IPC and our partners in decarbonization efforts throughout the city. One key part of the solution in Ithaca will involve the investment of capital into buildings that are converting to high efficiency heating and cooling solutions, including privately owned buildings. IPC leverages our capital by investing in projects like these around the country, including creating a lending facility for organizations like BlocPower that allows them to scale the deployment of energy efficient technologies. Contact us to learn more about how IPC can work with communities on developing financing strategies for decarbonization by emailing us at info@inclusiveteam.org

During the opening plenary of the ACEEE Finance Forum, Chief Strategy Officer, James McIntyre spoke to the work our team is doing in Ithaca with support of our partners. Read More »

Clean Energy States Alliance Launches Major Initiative to Advance Solar in Under-Resourced Communities

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US Department of Energy Funds CESA’s Efforts to Scale Up Solar for Low-and Moderate-Income Households Montpelier, VT (October 3, 2019) – The Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) will lead a wide-ranging initiative to accelerate the development of solar projects that benefit low-and-moderate-income (LMI) households and communities. The “Scaling Up Solar for Under-Resourced Communities Project” is being supported by a three-year funding award of $1.1 million from the US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. The project team will focus on three distinct subsets of the LMI solar market: single-family homes, manufactured homes, and multifamily affordable housing. For the single-family homes component of the initiative, CESA will work with Connecticut Green Bank, Inclusive Prosperity Capital, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and PosiGen Solar to evaluate and promote a successful initiative that has brought solar to more than 2,500 Connecticut single-family homes, most of which are LMI. State agencies from across the country will be given the opportunity to join a working group where they will receive technical assistance and other support to consider adopting similar programs for their states. For manufactured homes, CESA, with assistance from representatives of the New Mexico Energy Conservation and Management Division, will examine the potential for using solar to power manufactured homes in different states, based on their housing stock, solar policies, geography, and the applicability of different possible technologies. State government agencies, rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, and other stakeholders will be encouraged to join a learning network to explore the potential for launching a pilot project or program for manufactured homes. The multifamily affordable housing component of the project will build on work carried out by Clean Energy Group (CEG) in conjunction with the Kresge Foundation. CEG and CESA will work with housing developers/owners and community development lenders to replicate and expand loan guarantee and other foundation program-related investment (PRI) models for solar and solar plus battery storage (solar+storage) projects for multifamily affordable housing. Principal objectives will be to increase community resilience and reduce energy costs for low-income households. CESA has worked actively on LMI solar more than five years. CESA Executive Director Warren Leon remarks that: “CESA is committed to helping state governments and other stakeholders implement solar in ways that provide meaningful benefits to under-resourced communities. The new grant from the US DOE solar office will enable us to significantly expand our outreach and assistance.” To carry out the new initiative and other work CESA is engaged in related to solar for LMI communities, two talented individuals with strong experience working on this topic have been added to the CESA staff. CESA Project Director Nicole Hernandez Hammer is a well-known environmental justice advocate, climate change expert, and sea-level researcher. A Guatemalan immigrant, she has worked to address the disproportionate impacts of climate change on under-resourced communities across the US. For the past year, she has been a consultant to the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, working primarily with community groups on LMI solar. She was a climate science and community advocate at the Union of Concerned Scientists and assistant director of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies, among other positions. She was recently recognized by NBC as one of the #NBCLatino20. Laura Schieb, CESA project associate, earned a JD at Vermont Law School, as well as an LLM in Energy Law with a Certificate in Climate Law. While at the law school, she was employed as a Global Energy Law Fellow, implementing projects at the Energy Law Clinic, including leading a team preparing a report on low-income solar ownership in Vermont. To learn about or to sign up for updates about the new Scaling Up Solar for Under-Resourced Communities Project, go to www.cesa.org/projects/low-income-clean-energy/scaling-up-lmi-solar/. ### About the Clean Energy States Alliance The Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) is a national nonprofit coalition of public agencies and organizations working together to advance clean energy. CESA members—mostly state agencies—include many of the most innovative, successful, and influential public funders of clean energy initiatives in the country. CESA facilitates information sharing, provides technical assistance, coordinates multi-state collaborative projects, and communicates the achievements of its members. For more information, visit www.cesa.org. About the Solar Energy Technologies Office The US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, reliability, and performance of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more at energy.gov/solar-office.

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