ESCANABA—Lean & Green Michigan announced the financing of the Upper Peninsula’s first PACE project, a four-story commercial building in downtown Escanaba (pictured above).
The Upper Decker PACE project will see installation of insulative synthetic rubber roofing, and a net-metered rooftop solar power installation that will pay for itself in just over 5 years.
The $250,000 project will produce $525,950 in energy savings over 25 years—saving 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 1,756 metric tons of CO2 over that period, the equivalent of eliminating the electricity use of 319 homes for a year.
View the case study of the Upper Decker at https://leanandgreenmi.com/uploads/Upper-Decker.pdf.
“We at Upper Decker LLC are proud to have supported the first PACE deal in the Upper Peninsula, and hope it is the first of many in Delta County and Beyond,” said Jackie Zaplitny, controller at Clean Green Energy Inc. “This project will help to improve our beautiful historic buildings and make them safe and efficient for future tenants as well as improving the atmosphere of downtown Escanaba. We are excited to be a part of Escanaba’s thriving Central Historic District and look forward to continuing the development of our buildings and the district as a whole.”
PACE financing provides long-term financing of energy efficiency upgrades, renewable energy installations, and other green building imrpovements for residential, commercial, and industrial property owners.
Rather than traditional loans used to finance these improvements—which typically require repayment long before they pay for themselves in energy savings—PACE financing is applied to the building as a special property tax assessment that is repaid over up to 25 years. And like any other property tax assessment, the PACE financing is sold with the building should it change hands. Some 28 of Michigan’s 83 counties have approved PACE financing in their jurisdictions, along with 20 cities.