The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) has posted revised guidelines for retrofit projects, along with supplemental guidelines for new construction and refinancing, with a deadline of June 5th for final comments. After review by the Authority and the Attorney-General’s office, the guidelines are expected to be submitted to the NJEDA Board for approval and formal publication, likely in July.
Uniform assessment agreements and other documents have not be released yet, but are also expected to be approved, allowing municipalities to start the process of opting into the program by ordinance. Project applications would then start to be accepted in the fall.
In releasing the new guidelines, the agency notes:
The documents released for comment on May 29th, 2024, include ONLY the Program Guidelines and the Supplemental Guidelines. The NJEDA appreciates the market input and feedback received to date from the industry on the program guidelines. Such input is important and valuable in shaping the NJ Garden State C-PACE program. The documents posted are in advance of any updates that will result from the feedback received on the program guidelines. NJEDA will be making updates simultaneously to the guidelines and feedback received from this posting of the C-PACE documents.
It adds that once the final program guidelines are published, the current Clean Energy Assessment Program administered by the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) will cease accepting applications. (This program was based on the original 2011 PACE law in New Jersey. To date, no projects are known to have been approved by DCA.) Any PACE-eligible projects completed using other financing methods during the three years prior to the publication of the new guidelines may qualify for refinancing by PACE lenders under the proposed supplemental provisions.
For more information, see the official Garden State C-PACE program page at https://www.njeda.gov/c-pace/. The revised guidelines can be downloaded here, and the supplemental guidelines here.
NJPACE is a 501(c)(3) NJ nonprofit, and has been the principal advocate for C-PACE in NJ since SuperStorm Sandy in 2012. PACENation, the industry association, awarded NJPACE a PACESetter Award in 2022. NJPACE consults with public, private and nonprofit clients to maximize their opportunities of use this innovative form of financing and save them time, money and opportunity costs.
Contact:
Victoria Zelin, Director of Relationships, 908-507-3150
Jonathan Cloud, Executive Director, 908–581-8418
Gus Escher, Director of Finance, 609-413-1749