Marketing is an essential ingredient for the success of energy efficiency finance. But too often, finance and efficiency experts focus on technical and financial issues and underestimate the importance of marketing. Using best practices in marketing is necessary to drive demand to the high levels state goals require.

At a New England Clean Energy Council panel (more…)

Due to popular demand, the City of Phoenix, through a partnership with the National Bank of Arizona and Paramount Solar, is expanding a city-sponsored residential solar financing program.

Solar Phoenix 2 allows qualified homeowners in the APS and SRP utility districts to go solar with no (more…)

While at most conferences on solar energy, people talk about the BoS (Balance of System), at the SOCAP 12 conference held last week in San Francisco, it was all about the lessons learned from the BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid)—or the world’s largest, poorest demographic. That’s not only because the many renewable energy businesses working in developing (more…)

Financing issues remain a problem in solar market growth. While third-party PPAs have become widely accessible and transformed residential and larger commercial sectors, funding still remains a real bottleneck for the small commercial market niche. To explore solutions, Vote Solar commissioned a report looking at the problem in more depth, and exploring (more…)

On-bill repayment has received a great deal of attention during the last few years as a potential approach to expanding the reach of energy efficiency financing in the residential and commercial sectors. With on-bill repayment, utilities or third-party lenders cover the upfront cost of energy efficiency retrofits and customers pay back the loans through their utility bills. (more…)

A vast gap exists between the detailed information financial institutions need to support energy efficiency financing and the limited data they currently have. Several examples suggest these loan programs can succeed, but there are no large datasets supporting investment in energy efficiency.

Providing energy efficiency loans could give financial (more…)

How do you consume electricity in your home? For many households, this isn’t a question often considered. The question “How much do you spend on electricity?” resonates more with households and bill payers. Most people need an easy and actionable plan for managing costs, which at the same time will reduce overall energy consumption. Understanding (more…)

So, you’re at a networking event and you get an opportunity to talk with a Venture Capitalist (VC) for just a few minutes. After breaking the ice with quick introductory formalities, you present your elevator pitch, right? Wrong. How can you possibly capture that VC’s interest if you don’t know what excites them? Would you try to sell meat to a vegetarian or bricks to a (more…)

In October, the United Kingdom will embark on a national program to make millions of homes and businesses more energy efficient. Until then, officials are busy educating the British public about the Green Deal—a program giving people access to funding for energy efficiency upgrades at no up-front cost—and answering queries from foreign businesses (more…)

Every homeowner that makes the switch to solar becomes part of the solution to sustainably meeting the world’s energy needs. To ensure that your residential solar system is not only kind to the planet, but to your finances as well, avoid these seven mistakes when installing solar panels.

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