On 13 August, the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority announced the sale of $24.3m in bonds to finance residential energy efficiency loans.
Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Barclays approached the state with the idea of a warehouse line of credit that could be used to fund energy efficiency loans.
"The cost of loans offered by the government-backed scheme, which is run by the Green Deal Finance Company, are, depending on the size and payback of the loan, at over 8% AER [annual equivalent rate], when private lenders are offering energy efficiency loans to their mortgage customers at 2.29% AER.
The skills required to adequately assess the viability of energy efficiency and clean energy loan applications simply aren't widely available in the private market in Australia.
Under the official government scheme, launched in January 2013, householders sign up to the green deal to pay for energy efficiency improvements with a loan repaid through their electricity bills.
In a further boost to green campaigners, the bank may be used to help finance the green deal scheme, by which householders will have access to loans to carry out energy efficiency refurbishment, paying back the loans in instalments through their energy bills.
The policies now likely to be retained are: The $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation, or "green bank", which supports renewable energy and energy efficiency projects through commercial loans and generates a return on the government investment while reducing emissions.
A big shift would be to offer zero interest loans for energy efficiency projects, said Worthington.
Greenpeace urged ministers to adopt a number of measures including a home energy MoT, subsidised loans for energy efficiency work and investment to train people to carry out the necessary work.
