NYGB has provided two letters of credit totaling US$5.5 million to New York-based Energy Improvement Corporation (“EIC”), a not-for-profit, local development corporation formed to promote and facilitate meaningful energy savings through energy efficiency and renewable generation improvements to existing properties throughout New York State.
EIC’s Energize NY Finance product uses the Property Assessed Clean Energy (“PACE”) loan mechanism to finance qualified energy improvements to buildings for commercial property owners and not-for-profits located in participating NYS municipalities. Under the PACE structure, commercial and not-for-profit real estate owners can effectively borrow to finance energy improvements to their properties and repay this debt through additional finance charges that are included in the property tax bills collected by the participating municipalities. The letters of credit are expected to accelerate the expansion of EIC’s municipal membership, resulting in more than 550 PACE projects. This represents ~150.5 million in total project costs.