MAYOR DONIVESON 2 F.00H oe HALL 1'3n WinGTOMEMURCHLL SOUARE CITY OF EDMONTON EDMONTON. ALBERTA, CANADA T5J 2R7 PHONE e000. April 25, 2017 The Honourable Shaye Anderson Minister of Municipal Affairs 132 Legislature Building 10800- 97 Ave NW Edmonton AB TSK 286 Dest dion Zwil Further to recent discussions with Alberta Environment and Parks, | am writing to express the City of Edmonton's interest in continuing to work together to conduct small scale pilot projects to assess the feasibility of property assessed clean energy financing (PACE) in Alberta, The City of Edmonton is firmly committed to becoming a low carbon, energy sustainable city, Qur approach as detailed in the City's council-endorsed Edmonton's Community Eneray Transition Strategy identifies more than 150 energy transition tactics, including new types of financing that will make it easier for building owners to make energy efficiency improvements and clean energy investments, Among these is PACE, Although PACE can take a number of forms, existing programs typically have the following features + PACE financing is issued to property owners by governments, authorized government agencies and in some cases private finance entities. Loans can be up to 15-20 percent of a property's value for renewable energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging stations and water efficiency upgrades. + The financing creates a special assessment lien on the property which is repaid in annual property tax installments, + Many PACE programs require projects to generate utility savings that are greater than the annual PACE assessment + PACE financing can be applied to all types of residential and commercial buildings The City of Edmonton's interest in PACE stems from its widely reported success. According to PACE authorities, more than 130,000 homes in the U.S. have participated in PACE programs to date - investing approximately $3.4 billion (i.e., an average of $26,000 per home). Together these investments have created 33,000 jobs, saved $5 billion in energy bills, reduced 4.2 million metric tons of carbon and saved 9 billion gallons of water. 12We are excited that PACE loans are included as enabling proposals in City Charters and gathered positive feedback from the public and stakeholders during the engagement sessions held in October 2016. In fact, the City of Edmonton along with the Environmental Law Centre (Alberta) Society has undertaken a study that looks at the current status of Alberta legislation including barriers to PACE programming, The study also provides details on PACE programs in British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Yukon, along with copies of their enabling provincial legislation. This report is attached for your information. Building on the work done to date on PACE legislation as part of City Charters process, we are ready to work with the Province of Alberta and other key stakeholders to explore enabling PACE legislation, assess possible program delivery models and conduct a small-scale pilot project of PACE in Alberta Minister Anderson, the City of Edmonton looks forward to working in partnership with you and other Alberta stakeholders to explore the feasibility of a made-in-Alberta PACE program. ‘Yours truly, 4 o i # "4 Don Iveson Mayor Enclosure Hon. Joe Ceci, President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance Hon. Shannon Phillips, Minister of Environment and Parks