Multifamily Housing
The Philadelphia Energy Authority strives to eliminate the financial barriers to energy upgrades by making clean energy accessible and affordable. Energy upgrades provide significant benefits to multifamily housing units, including increasing the property value, lowering its day-to-day operating costs, and reducing its carbon footprint.
Multifamily units who received energy upgrades
197
Low-income households in Philadelphia who are energy burdened
75%
Weatherization deferral rate due to home condition
>50%
Hard and soft costs for solar & energy efficiency eligible for C-PACE financing
100%
Multifamily Housing Financing Products
Commercial Property-Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) financing helps commercial property owners pay for energy efficiency, water conservation, clean energy, indoor air quality (IAQ) and resiliency projects. This innovative financing tool allows borrowers to save money on utility bills while reducing their carbon footprints, provide healthier indoor conditions for occupants and improve stormwater management and other flood, fire and wind protective measures. C-PACE financing is available for new and existing multifamily properties of 5+ units. See all financed Philadelphia C-PACE projects here.
PEA, in conjunction with its green bank affiliate, Philadelphia Green Capital Corp, and Inclusive Prosperity Capital provide innovative financing solutions for energy efficiency and clean energy as well as tailored guidance and resources for prospective partners. PGCC’s innovative financing solutions help to streamline the process of executing energy upgrades on affordable multifamily housing units. PGCC’s lending products include the Navigator Pre-Development Loan, the Catalyst Term Loan, solar PPAs, long term ownership or debt capital for community-focused solar projects, and solar and storage loans.
Navigator Pre-Development Loan
The Navigator Pre-Development Loan provides an alternatively secured line of credit to finance pre-development energy projects in nonprofit and multifamily properties. Navigator funding allows owners to connect with technical service providers for project analysis, design, and implementation.
Learn MoreCatalyst Term Loan
The Catalyst Term Loan provides alternatively secured financing for low- and moderate-income (LMI) multifamily properties and community-based nonprofit organizations. This loan can be used for energy efficiency or renewable energy projects, performance monitoring and verification, and remediation for health and safety. Loans can be repaid partially and, in some cases fully, from energy and operating cost savings that result from the improvements.
Learn MoreMultifamily Housing Pilot
Pilot Overview
PEA assembled a team for a multifamily pilot project, which is serving as the model for scaling up across Philadelphia. The implementation partners for the Multi-Family Affordable Housing Pilot are Mission First Housing Group, Friends Rehabilitation Program, BlocPower, CMC Energy Services, Stratis IOT, PECO Energy, and Philadelphia Gas Works. Phase 1 included auditing of the Mission First Housing Group and Friends Rehabilitation Program properties, totaling 189 units. CMC Energy Services collected key data on the properties and installed utility-funded measures to address electricity and gas consumption. Along with the energy conservation, CMC and Stratis IOT installed networked smart thermostats, which now allow BlocPower to collect aggregated and anonymous data on the conditions that tenants experience, which allowed BlocPower to refine their recommendations for larger investments in energy conservation.
PEA is leveraging the experience from the pilot project to provide technical assistance to property owners who are looking for ways to improve the energy performance of their buildings and to help cut utility costs for tenants.
Pilot Properties
