The Alaska C-PACE program platform was designed through an extensive stakeholder effort that involved over 80 participants from numerous sectors including real estate, banking, construction, and local government. The program design process was facilitated by the Alaska Energy Authority (AEA) and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The enabling legislation for C-PACE (HB 80) was signed into law August 2017 and codified at AS 29.55.100 – .165, which allows local governments to create and manage C-PACE programs. In 2017, AEA and the Governor’s office convened stakeholders and outside experts to discuss the implementation of C-PACE in Alaska. Because local administration of C-PACE could be expensive for many areas, consensus was reached among participating local governments, non-profit organizations, financial institutions, trade associations, and other stakeholders to work together toward uniform program parameters that could be adopted by local governments. This group (the “Advisory Group”), is open to relevant stakeholders interested in helping implement C-PACE in Alaska.
The Advisory Group includes representatives of local governments, state entities, lending institutions, non-profits, utilities, and private businesses. As an eligible government partner of the Advisory Group, AEA applied for and was awarded a competitive grant from the U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Program (DOE SEP) in 2018 for the purpose of developing platform documents to assist local governments in creating a uniform C-PACE program statewide. In 2019, AEA hired a program design consultant, PACE Financial Servicing (PFS), to guide the development of the Alaska C-PACE administrative platform.
In the summer of 2020, AEA and PFS launched a webinar series to solicit feedback from the general public on C-PACE program design. Recordings of those webinars and their corresponding slides are available below. Incorporating input from the participants of this webinar series and the Advisory Group, AEA and PFS published the resultant Alaska C-PACE program platform in the fall of 2020. This platform is available as a resource to any eligible muncipality in Alaska that wishes to establish a C-PACE program.