On-bill repayment programs

On-bill repayment (OBR) offers an opportunity for residential and commercial property owners to finance energy efficiency and renewable electricity generation projects through cost-savings loans from third-party investors. The loans are repaid through customers’ utility bills and financed at no additional cost to ratepayers. OBR allows for longer term loans with lower interest rates.

EDF has been building a coalition of environmental groups, financial institutions, contractors and project developers to help develop OBR programs.

The program can work for single-family, multi-family and commercial buildings. The on-bill repayment can be structured for a variety of financing techniques, including loans, leases, Energy Service Agreements and Power Purchase Agreements.

Benefits of OBR include:

• No direct costs to taxpayers or ratepayers
• Job creation
• Customer access to low-cost capital
• Acceleration of clean energy investments and emissions reductions
• Reduced program costs through a scalable platform and standardized processes
• Avoided cost of new generation capacity and reduced use of higher-cost generation for ratepayers

OBR provides a new route to funding clean energy investments at attractive terms, creating jobs and lowering our carbon footprint.  On the national level, EDF estimates that expanding low-cost energy efficiency financing, through programs like OBR, could boost employment job-years by 1 million over the next decade (a job-year is a full-time job that lasts for one year).  And, at scale, EDF estimates that OBR could help to avoid 200 million metric tons over the course of a decade, or about 50,000 cars off the road (based on year 2010 models).

EDF is building coalitions and securing the necessary regulatory and legislative changes to enact and/or expand OBR programs in California, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.