Financing Energy Efficiency for Municipal Electric Utility Customers in North Carolina

<p>Energy efficiency finance programs can help electricity customers to save money on their electric bills, have more efficient homes and offices to live and work in, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy production, and promote workforce development, job creation, and economic growth in local communities which may be very much in need of these benefits.</p> <p>In the Old North State, electricity customers are generally served by one of three kinds of utilities: Investor-owned utilities (IOU’s), co-operative utilities (co-ops), and municipal electrical utilities (munis). As part of the its energy and sustainability financing programs, the Environmental Finance Center at the UNC School of Government is now working on the Rural Community Energy and Economic Capacity Building Program, funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI), to research and develop ways to help electricity customers in three small towns in northeastern North Carolina to have greater access to energy efficiency (EE) financing alternatives. Two of these three towns have their own municipal electric utilities.</p> <p>This brings us to the key questions of this blog post: What are utilities already doing in North Carolina to promote and finance EE for their customers? What other alternatives exist? And why does this matter in the first place?</p> <p></p> <p>Energy Efficiency, Workforce Training, and Economic Development</p> <p>Let’s take that last question first. As the EFC has blogged about previously, successful energy efficiency financing programs can have a variety of benefits for local communities:</p> Dollar savings to individuals and organizations Energy savings that also reduce CO2 emissions Local jobs created, workforce training, and economic development <p>Taking the first [...]</p>