August 21st, 2020
While COVID-19 has presented many challenges to businesses in the spring and summer of 2020, the Pennsylvania C-PACE program has still seen a lot of great success. With county governments moving to virtual public meetings and/or socially distanced services, SEF staff conducted virtual outreach and education initiatives on C-PACE to county officials as they were available. This resulted in Bedford County and Centre County adopting C-PACE programs in June and July respectively, increasing the number of counties that have passed a C-PACE resolution to eleven. These counties are Allegheny, Bedford, Centre, Chester, Lawrence, Lebanon, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia and Wayne Counties.
In addition to events and meetings held for County officials, SEF hosted several C-PACE webinars as a way to provide education about the program. Through partnerships with the Energy Efficiency Alliance (EEA), Council of Development Finance Agencies (CDFA), the law firm Bricker Eckler, and other organizations, SEF reached just over 540 people though these online events this spring and summer. SEF is planning to provide more C-PACE virtual education events this fall.
Last but not least, Philadelphia Energy Authority announced they closed their first project in July, which marks the first C-PACE project in Pennsylvania. We look forward to more projects as counties continue to adopt the program.
As we head into fall, SEF remains optimistic about the success of C-PACE and is committed to facilitating C-PACE to the remaining counties virtually or in-person. To learn more about PA C-PACE, visit www.pennsylvaniacpace.org.