New Jersey PACE is an “open” program, in that owners can bring their own financing, or select from a number of interested capital providers.

We are currently interviewing potential capital providers for all types and sizes of PACE projects in New Jersey, and if you are interested we invite you to complete our Capital Provider Questionnaire to allow us to better understand your role, interests, and capabilities.

We also have a backstop commitment from Clean Fund for all approved PACE projects over $300,000. Clean Fund, a B-Corp, is the firm that successfully acquired $26 million in PACE loans from Connecticut’s C-PACE program in May 2014. They offer competitive market rates, rapid turnaround on approvals, and have a long term commitment to serving PACE programs nationwide.

It’s become customary in the nationwide PACE industry to claim “funding commitments” in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. In many cases these claims are misleading, because the money is not really being “set aside” for specific deals or programs. Many of these are paper agreements with plenty of out clauses. Our relationship with Clean Fund isn’t like that. We know from experience that they have a substantial capacity to finance PACE transactions in California and elsewhere in the country; now it’s up to us to create the “deal flow” to make it happen in New Jersey. And we’re proud that they’re aligned with us and our nonprofit model.

But we doubt that any investor, however large the funds they manage, can really meet the potential demand in New Jersey. That’s why we’re looking for a wide range of capital providers, from Wall Street firms to local credit unions. We’d like to see some of the profits from these deals stay local. But what’s most important is to get the capital flowing into local communities, “off the sidelines” and into jobs, economic development, self-sufficiency, and a cleaner environment. If you are a capital provider or tax equity investor, we invite you to contact us and submit your interests and credentials. We promise to treat everyone fairly and transparently, and work together to make PACE in New Jersey a town-by-town energy and economic transformation.