Excerpting from the HERO Program’s June 29th press release, “Renovate America today announced that California home energy savings from the HERO Program hit 10 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), an important milestone that is roughly equivalent to taking almost a million Americans off the grid for a year or closing two coal-fired power plants for a year.
“Californians are once again leading the country in energy conservation, clean energy, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Rick Bishop, executive director of the Western Riverside Council of Governments, a public administrator of the program, representing the region where the program launched. “By helping homeowners improve their homes and lower their utility bills through energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades, the HERO Program has demonstrated that incremental, individual action can bring about change in a significant way.”
“HERO Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing enables homeowners to make energy- and water-efficiency improvements and install solar power panels and pay for them over time through their property tax bill. The renovations and installations completed to date are projected to save 10 billion kWh of grid electricity over the useful lifetime of the products and systems.
“To put this number in perspective, the City of San Francisco uses roughly 6 billion kWh in one year.The entire country of Costa Rica uses about ten. Ten billion kWh could light up the Eiffel Tower for more than 17,000 years.” Continue reading here.