Recently in Energy Efficiency Financing Districts Category

Bill Swietlik has worked in EPA's Office of Water in Washington DC since 1988. In 2009, he  created the EPA Green Homes website.  This website provides pages of useful, practical information and advice for the homeowner or apartment dweller to live a greener, more energy efficient life at home.

While he was developing the website, he and his wife  decided to implement as many of the recommendations as possible to see if they could live greener, and after six months the results came in!

• They are using 35% less electricity,
• They are using a bit less water,
• They are recycling 75% of all our household waste,
• Most storm water runoff stays on our property during each rainfall,
• They are gradually eliminating our ½ acre of lawn (and all the work that goes with it) and turning it into a garden of native plants by re-naturalizing our yard.
• They purchased 100% Green Power (renewable electricity) from the local utility through their renewable energy program.
• And, they've done all this with minimal expense and are saving almost $550 a year on energy bills!

EPA's new Green Homes website is at  www.epa.gov/greenhomes

In California cities are putting out bonds and using these bonds to provide loans to commercial property owners that they can use to retrofit and upgrade their buildings.

These are called "Energy Efficiency Financing Districts" and are a relatively new business model for funding green housing and buildings that can create more sustainable communities.

• The County of Sonoma (northern California) was the first county government to create a $100 million program exclusively for the Energy Efficiency Financing District program.

  Other municipalities that have Energy Efficiency Financing Districts in progress include:

• San Francisco
• Berkeley
• City of Palm Desert
• San Diego

California's AB 811 program, which was approved in July 2008, was designed to allow property owners to finance the installation of renewable energy systems and have the financing incorporated into their property tax payment. This state bill is making it possible for cities to create these new financing programs for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.