Funding will come through revenue raised by the auction of carbon-emission credits through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and will be used to leverage private and federal investments. The bill allocates $112 million from those auctions to NYSERDA. Auctions for the last two years raised $126 million, with an estimated $75 million expected in the next two auctions.
NYSERDA will establish a revolving loan program to provide up to $13,000 per residential customer to retrofit a home, and up to $26,000 to retrofit each qualifying business, along with a credit enhancement for critical private-sector capital investments.
NYSERDA and the NYS DOL will create additional workforce training programs to develop a pool of talent to handle mass-scale retrofitting. Local contractions will be certified to perform the retrofits, creating new jobs in green construction.
The program will front the cost of the work, although property owners will repay the full cost over time. It is expected that energy use will be reduced by 30 to 40 percent, so that loan payments will be less than savings -- yielding a net gain to property owners.
Read more at: www.nyserda.org
