Promoting clean energy investment: An empirical analysis of property assessed clean energy

Abstract

From 2008 to 2010 a handful of Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs offered property-secured loans to homeowners for residential clean energy investments. This analysis uses difference-in-differences models and synthetic counterfactual models to estimate the effect of three California PACE programs on residential photovoltaic installations. While PACE programs do not offer superior terms to other solar financing options, we find that PACE financing increases solar installations by approximately 3.8watts per owner-occupied household per quarter, a 108% increase over the mean watts per owner-occupied household.