Ask a Solar Expert: What is Climate Smart?

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Transcription: What is the Climate Smart loan program?

Boulder County is about to roll out the second round of the Climate Smart Loan Program. The Climate Smart loan program is a really innovative way for homeowners and business owners to get financing for energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy on their property.

This a program that they piloted first in the spring and now it’s time to do it again. Not going to give you too many details on the mechanics of the program. For information about that I would recommend you go to www.climatesmartloanprogram.org

I do want to talk about how you can use it to put solar on your home, and they steps you can expect in doing that. One of the nice things about this program is that it helps a lot of people get around the upfront cost of going solar. If you’re having trouble finding funding to go solar, or you haven’t quite found the options that you want to finance a solar system it is a great way to do it. The nice thing about this program is that the cost of the loan is associated with your property taxes. So, if you don’t think your are going to be in your home long enough recoup the value of the system, you can do that. The debt will stay with the property, so you don’t have to take that solar debt with you if you move.

If you’re interested in using Boulder County’s Climate Smart Loan Program to install solar on your home, the first step would be to attend a mandatory workshop. These workshops are going to be held starting July 28th and going through September 1st at various locations around the county. So, go to www.climatesmartloanprogram.org to find out which workshop would work best for you. They’ll be covering things like program details, application timelines, and deadlines you need to pay attention to.

Once you know that you want to use this program, give us a call and we’ll come out to assess your site for solar to give you a bid. A few things that we’ll be looking at are measuring your roof, seeing that you’ve got a good site, that you don’t have too much shade and looking at how we are going to tie into your electrical service.

Don’t wait too long to give us a call because if it is anything like what happened in the spring there are going to be a lot of people, and you want to make sure you’ve got time to look at your various options for going solar. There is more that one way to “skin a cat” so you’ll want to consider all the recommendations you’ll be getting to find the right system for you. One very important thing is that when you do get these bids there will be a not to exceed amount that is required by the Climate Smart Loan Program. That amount will be the post rebate amount of the total system cost. So we can accept the Xcel rebate for you, which is about 50 percent of the system cost. The amount that you want to go to the loan officer for is the post rebate cost, but the pre-federal tax credit. We cannot accept the federal tax credit for you, and that is very important to remember.

There is also a bid estimate cover sheet that we’ll need to fill out, which you will take with you when you go to apply online. So the first step in applying is actually an online process. It will just take a couple of minutes and you’ll just enter some general information about the project that you want done and an estimate of the cost.

From there, the County will pre-qualify all the loans and set-up a time for you to meet with the loan originator. When you meet with the loan originator make sure that you detail out are looking for a loan that is the post rebate amount of the total project cost.

After you’ve met with the loan originator, the county will then go out and sell bonds to finance all these projects and determine the interest rate on the loan. Expect about a month to go by from when you met with the loan originator to when you get the notice to proceed with your project and that final approval. So once you have the notice to proceed we then have 180 days to get your system up, installed and running.

You know that your job is done when you’ve passed inspection. Once that inspection has been passed is the time when you need to fill out a home owner’s acknowledgment form, take a copy of your inspection report from your permitting authority and an invoice from us and take that to the county. That will release payment to us and you have essentially gotten a new solar system with no upfront cost to you.

You’ll then begin paying that loan back when your property taxes come due. So for some people that will be will be a once a year payment, for some it will be a twice a year payment and for some that is a monthly payment.

Tags: Climate Smart, solar expert