News Brief

Better Loan Terms for High-Performing Retrofits and New Builds

Cirrus Low Carbon offers a sweeter deal on C-PACE loans for commercial projects verified to achieve high-performance design specifications.

cirrus low carbon logo
Image: New Buildings Institute
The Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy loan program (C-PACE) offers low-interest capital to projects pursuing energy and water savings; the loan gets paid back through a special tax assessment. Pretty good deal, but the New Buildings Institute (NBI) and PACE Equity have teamed up to make it even better.

Project teams committing to higher performance now have access to the Cirrus Low Carbon program, which provides a design specification for commercial buildings based on the ASHRAE 90.1-2019 energy standard. As part of the program, PACE Equity provides capital and technical assistance, and NBI verifies the project has met the design standard. The building gets a special third-party designation as a result.

Items in the Cirrus Low Carbon Design Specification include:

  • Building envelope
  • HVAC systems
  • Lighting and controls
  • Appliances
  • Solar readiness
  • Fenestration
  • Window-to-wall ratio
  • Advanced metering
  • Energy modeling

Projects pursuing the alternate performance path must achieve energy consumption 8% better than ASHRAE 90.1-2019 for Tier 1 and 10% better than 90.1-2019 for Tier 2 of the program.

The Cirrus financing program is available for both new construction and renovations of multifamily buildings, hospitality, commercial offices, retail, and warehouses. It’s available in 25 U.S. states.

For more information:

PACE Equity
pace-equity.com

 

Published May 2, 2022

Melton, P. (2022, April 21). Better Loan Terms for High-Performing Retrofits and New Builds. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/newsbrief/better-loan-terms-high-performing-retrofits-and-new-builds

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