The Indiana Energy Independence Fund on Tuesday announced it would begin lending services for energy-efficient projects.
“We are excited to introduce this new financing option to enable organizations across the Hoosier state” to take on such proposals, Executive Director Alex Crowley said in a news release.
He said the fund could enable projects that help residents save money and make the state a “healthier, more efficient place to live and work.”
The commercial lending program targets Hoosier businesses, not-for-profits and governments to help lower their energy costs. It comes though a partnership with the National Energy Improvement Fund.
“As a Certified B Corporation, NEIF focuses its financing on investments in efficiency and electrification measures that reduce carbon emissions, and this new partnership with IEIF fits squarely with our mission and offerings,” Co-Chair and Managing Member Matthew H. Brown said.
Eligible projects could include LED lighting and electrical work, solar panels, geothermal energy, and high-efficiency heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
The news release also lists refrigeration, controls, water-saving measures, building envelope projects and retro-commissioning as examples of the types of projects the fund would finance.
The Indiana fund launched last year, according to website archives.
It was formed by a coalition—the McKinney Family Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the City of Indianapolis Office of Sustainability, Elevate Energy and the Natural Resources Defense Council—according to a Michigan-based consultant contracting for the fund.
The fund’s three goals are to accelerate the adoption of eco-friendly, efficient energy technologies through financing, addressing marketplace gaps to support a greener, cheaper energy transition, and to leverage funding—local, state, federal and philanthropic—to support “green” jobs and workforce development.
It calls itself a “green bank,” a type of financing entity that uses capital to push emissions-lowering energy projects, per the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The entities are not banks and don’t provide typical banking functions or have depositories.
By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz — The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
