Los Angeles plans to cut building energy use 20 percent through retrofits. The effort--approved earlier this month by a city council committee and expected to win the full council’s nod--puts to work $37 million of federal Department of Energy stimulus funds. The goal is to employ “a whole-house approach” that improves the long-term energy efficiency of structures, rather than merely upgrade appliances, according to Gretchen Hardison, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power energy efficiency manager. Commercial building owners can take advantage of Los Angeles County’s Property Assessed Clean Energy financing program. Under PACE, the building owners can borrow money from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and pay it back through their property taxes. Homeowners can get rebates for retrofits from LADWP later this spring. Los Angeles County has teamed up with the city redevelopment agency to offer the program on a pilot basis solely for commercial properties. Initially the county intended PACE to be available on a county-wide basis for both businesses and homeowners. However, the county put the broader program on hold after the Federal Housing Finance Agency ruled that PACE financing imposes an unreasonable financial risk to banks that make mortgage loans (Current, March 11, 2011).
