Toward a Low-Carbon economy: Municipal financing for energy efficiency and solar power

Environment

Volumn 51, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 22-33

  Fuller, Merrian ^a   Portis, Stephen ^b   Kammen, Daniel ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b UC Berkeley ^*

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67649559513     PISSN: 00139157     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3200/ENVT.51.1.22-33     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. A. Gore, "A Generational Challenge to Repower America," speech given at the D.A.R. Constitutional Hall, Washington, DC, 17 July 2008, http://www .wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/ (accessed 9 October 2008).
2. Building Technologies Program, 2007 Buildings Energy Data Book (Washington, DC: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, September 2007), Section 1.1: Buildings Sector Energy Consumption.
3. Energy Information Administration (EIA), EIA 2006: Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States, DOE/EIA-0579 (Washington, DC, 2006).
4. Title 24 documentation is available from the California Energy Commission, http://www.energy.ca.gov/ title24/ (accessed 13 May 2008).
5. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, including the latest, the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report, are available at www.ipcc.ch/ipc-creports/index.htm (accessed 1 December 2008).
6. Measure G in Berkeley, California, sets an 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction target by 2050. Members of C40, a climate leadership group of mayors from cities such as Tokyo, Sydney, Rome, New York, and Mumbai, are working together to set targets and reduce greenhouse emissions. For more information, visit http:// www.c40cities.org/ (accessed 26 May 2008).
7. California has committed to statewide greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets of 2000 levels by 2010, 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Minnesota has committed to statewide emissions reduction goals of 15 percent by 2015, 30 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050, based on 2005 levels. Florida has committed to statewide emissions reduction targets of 2000 levels by 2017, 1990 levels by 2025, and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Other state targets can be found at http://www.pewclimate.org/ states-regions (accessed 26 May 2008).
8. Japan and the United Kingdom have adopted 2050 targets of over 60 percent reductions in emissions; Austria has established the goal of 80 percent decarbon-ization; and Sweden is committed to eliminating carbon emissions by 2030.
9. California Energy Commission, 2007 Integrated Energy Policy Report, CEC-100-2007-008-CMF (2007), http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007- energypolicy/index .html (accessed 13 May 2008);
10. and B. Farhar and T. Coburn, "A New Market Paradigm for Zero-Energy Homes: A Comparative Case Study," Environment 50, no. 1 (January/February 2008): 18-32.
11. California Public Utilities Commission, California Long Term Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan: Achieving Maximum Energy Savings in California for 2009 and Beyond (2008).
12. These increases are based on EIA average U.S. retail prices from 2002 to 2006 for residential electricity and natural gas.
13. A. Goett and W. Moss, Implicit Discount Rates in Residential Customer Choices, Investments in Conservation Measures, EM-5587, Volume 1, Research Project 2547-1 (Palo Alto, CA: Electric Power Research Institute, 1988).
14. A. B. Jaffe and R. N. Stavins, "The Energy-Efficiency Gap: What Does It Mean?" Energy Policy 22, no. 10 (1994): 804-10.
15. The Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act (Gov. Code Section 53339.3 (b)) allows local agencies, when they form a community facilities district, to "identify territory proposed for annexation in the future, with the condition that parcels within the territory may only be annexed with the unanimous approval of the owner or owners of each parcel or parcels at the time that parcel or those parcels are annexed." The new code will incorporate this provision. Before the city pays the contractor, the property owner must agree to annex into the special tax district and pay a specific special tax. In short, the act authorizes creation of community facilities districts, the issuance of taxable municipal bonds, and the levy of special taxes to finance public facilities and certain improvements to private property. The Mello-Roos Act does not currently authorize local agencies to finance energy projects for private property, but Berkeley and all other charter cities have the power to adopt a special tax financing law to adapt the Mello-Roos Act for that purpose. Another California law, Assembly Bill 11, creates a similar financing mechanism using assessment districts, but unlike Mello-Roos does not require that participating municipalities be charter cities. Palm Desert has implemented financing using this law.
16. IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Core Writing Team, R. K. Pachauri, and A. Reisinger, eds. (Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC), available at http://www.ipcc.ch/ ipccreports/ index.htm (accessed 1 December 2008).
17. The baseline EIA energy prices can be found in EIA, 2008 Annual Energy Outlook with Projections to 2030 (Washington, DC, 2008).
18. VentureSource data as cited in C. Sullivan, "Renewable Energy: Has Silicon Valley Carved a Safe Niche from the Economic Storm?" Greenwire, 22 October 2008.
19. P. C. Stern et al., "The Effectiveness of Incentives for Residential Energy Conservation," Evaluation Review 10, no. 2 (1985): 162.
20. It is likely that homes with solar and efficiency features will increase in value. Recent research suggested this is true for commercial buildings, which have higher rental and sales prices when labeled EnergyStar buildings. P. Eichholtz, N. Kok, and J. M. Quigley, "Doing Well by Doing Good? Green Office Buildings," UC Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, Working Paper W08-001, April 2008.
21. This assumes the U.S. average case described in the text. We use the EIA 2006 average of 0.00061 tons carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour and the 2006 U.S. Census figure of 126,316,181 housing units.
22. This assumes the EIA projection of business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions for 2020 of 6,384 million metric tons. The savings from 15 percent participation of U.S. residential buildings is 4 percent of the difference between the business-as-usual projection and the 1990 emissions level. This target has been frequently mentioned in proposed U.S. climate legislation, as seen in L. Parker, B. Yacobucci, and J. Ramseur, Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Cap-and-Trade Bills in the 110th Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service: 2008), 29.