City of Bellingham
EEFC is a partner to the City of Bellingham’s Energy Efficiency Community Challenge (EEC), an innovative program which aims to substantially reduce Bellingham and Whatcom County’s consumption of electricity and natural gas through a comprehensive energy efficiency retrofit program aimed at both commercial and residential facilities. The Program will provide community members with a “one-stop-shop” which helps them with each step of an efficiency project, from the audit, selection of projects and contractors, securing of financing, help in accessing rebates, and quality assurance. Several key components are addressed by the multiple community partners participating in the EEC. The City of Bellingham will contribute a portion of their energy efficiency stimulus funds (the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants) to a loan loss reserve fund which will leverage local commercial finance. The Bellingham Community Action Agency, the Opportunity Council, with their for-profit subsidiary, the Building Performance Center, will implement the retrofits while continuing to provide weatherization services to low-income residents. To ensure a ready workforce, the Building Performance Center will partner with Bellingham Technical College to design deep efficiency training programs for new contractors, building on their current training programs which offer additional certifications for licensed contractors. Puget Sound Energy and Cascade Natural Gas, the areas utilities, will provide in-kind audits, a resource manager for commercial property owners, and rebates. EEFC provides the expertise to design financial tools that secure participation by state and local governments, utilities, local banks and credit unions that will result in attractive and affordable financing options. All partners will contribute to the program’s community based social marketing component.
EEFC will assist with the overall business plan, sizing of the market and initial investment, and assist in structuring the credit enhancement, in the form of a loan loss reserve fund. EEFC will help identify loan demand and customer contribution to their projects. EEFC will assist the City and County to develop their strategy, budget and application of their Energy Efficiency & Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) funds as well as assist in writing of the request for proposals (RFP) for financial institutions. EEFC will also develop concepts for the use of utility funding and conduct consultations with banks and advise on structure of individual loan products.