Compromise is Reached on Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Program

The Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program let’s you pay for home energy upgrades through your property taxes and lets you write off the interest in most cases. At the same time some PACE programs have high interest rates and invoke liens on homes. Over 180,000 home owners nationwide have used this program and PACE has been under attack recently due to some predatory lenders using the PACE program in an unethical fashion. After behind the scenes work between Senate staffers, consumer groups, mortgage lenders, and PACE proponents, a compromise has been reached through a large banking bill that was overwhelming supported by the Senate Banking Committee. It’s not clear what changes we’re made but this is a rare win for the solar industry after the Trump administration and Republicans have killed the Clean Power Plan and stalled energy-efficiency standards. What all homeowners should know moving forward is to be very careful with any PACE loan that is offered because of everything that has happened. PACE does have potential to offer a great solutions for home energy upgrades but now it’s clear that it can be dangerous as well so this is another lesson for homeowners to be even more careful whenever taking a loan for energy upgrades.