The Pennsylvania Treasury Department has partnered with the Foundation for Renewable Energy and Environment (FREE), with financial support from the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, to develop a prudent, market-based investment vehicle that promotes energy and water efficiency, clean energy generation, economic development and environmental improvement.
To achieve this goal, FREE has established The Pennsylvania Sustainable Energy Finance Program (the Program; also PennSEF) that will provide technical and legal assistance, as well as low-cost capital, for energy improvement projects by municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals – the so-called “MUSH” sector (including counties and governmental agencies).
Under the Program, participating organizations in the MUSH sector (Participants) will receive free energy audits from energy service companies, or “ESCOs.” Only projects whose proposed improvements are projected to generate sufficient savings to pay for themselves can be approved to move forward. Once projects have been defined and the Participants have decided to proceed, bonds will be issued to finance the improvement work. By aggregating the projects in a single financing, the Program will provide Participants with better financing terms than would be available individually. The energy and water cost savings from the projects will be guaranteed to be sufficient to repay the bonds.
NOTE: Information on this page is subject to change.