Saint Louis Area Homeowners Make Home Improvements With HERO

ST. LOUIS, MO – More than 415,000 homeowners in the St. Louis metro area now have access to HERO Property Assessed Clean Energy, an innovative financing mechanism that allows property owners to make energy-efficiency and renewable-energy improvements to their homes and pay for them over time as an additional, voluntary line item on their property taxes. HERO, or Home Energy Renovation Opportunity, launched in Missouri in September 2016 and is offered through a public-private partnership between the Missouri Clean Energy District and Renovate America, the nation’s largest PACE provider.

HERO empowers homeowners to establish greater energy independence with improvements, such as rooftop solar and high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, which can help lower energy bills. HERO-financed home upgrades in the metro area are projected to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by over 12,000 tons – equivalent to taking more than 2,500 passenger vehicles off the road for a year. These improvements are projected to save local homeowners 27 million kilowatt hours of electricity over the expected useful lifetime of the products installed. That is enough energy to power over 3,000 homes for a full calendar year. By stimulating home improvements, PACE programs like HERO also increase demand for local contractor services – creating good-paying jobs that cannot be offshored or automated.

Several St. Louis metro communities enabled HERO for their residents in 2017, including Bridgeton, Sunset Hills, Richmond Heights, Des Peres, Maryland Heights, Manchester, St. John and Webster Groves. The upgrades financed through HERO are helping homeowners in St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin Counties save energy, enhancing their comfort at home, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and supporting local jobs – all at no cost to local government budgets.

Laurence Banks of Hazelwood used HERO to replace his 16-year-old heating and cooling system this past winter and immediately noticed a difference in his family’s home. “We didn’t have to set the furnace as high to keep the house nice and warm, and we could use less energy at the same time,” Banks said.

Banks continued, “When we looked at our options, HERO financing was the smart thing to do. It was more convenient than setting up a home equity line of credit, cheaper than using a credit card, and much better than shelling out a big chunk of cash. This is a great alternative for people who need to make energy efficient upgrades and should be more widely available.”

PACE financing presents an opportunity for the St. Louis region to reach its clean energy goals, protect resources for future generations and boost economic opportunity for local communities, said Erin Noble, Director of Business Operations at StraightUp Solar and Board Member of the Missouri Solar Energy Industries Association. “It is fantastic to see so many local communities joining this beneficial partnership that is already delivering results, and I hope others will continue to follow suit.”

David Pickerill, Executive Director of MCED, agreed. “PACE is creating jobs, saving families money on their energy bills and giving homeowners a new way to invest in their homes and neighborhoods,” he said. “It’s exciting to see what PACE financing has been able to achieve in the St. Louis metro area in such a short amount of time.”

Image courtesy of Renovate America