The Environmental Defense Fund’s (EDF) Investor Confidence Project (ICP), and the Clean Energy Finance Center (CEFC) in partnership with state and local lending programs, financial organizations, and other stakeholders, are collecting, aggregating and analyzing loan performance and energy savings data from energy efficiency retrofits in residential and commercial buildings.  

Banks and credit agencies rely on rigorous historical loan performance data (e.g., default rates) in making lending decisions. Since energy efficiency investing is in the early stages, there is limited historical loan performance data, and what does exist is not aggregated or standardized. Additionally, a wide array of investors including building owners, energy service companies, insurance providers and even utilities are struggling to ensure savings are delivered and lack the clear data and replicable protocols necessary to accurately underwrite loans.

Lack of data standards and access to data on loan performance and energy savings, have been cited by a broad range of stakeholders, from capital providers and policy makers, to building owners and contractors, as impeding large scale investment in building retrofits. Five organizations with leading clean energy financing programs have committed to be involved in the initiative and to provide loan performance and energy performance data: Clean Energy Works Oregon, the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority in Connecticut, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the Pennsylvania Treasury, Town of Babylon's Long Island Green Homes program, Greater Cincinnati Energy Alliance, and PACEnow.

EDF and CEFC, working with the University of Chicago's Data Science for Social Good fellowship program, will identify use cases for loan and project performance data, determine gaps that may exist in the current datasets, and deliver the high quality analytics to support the advancement of energy efficiency finance and investment through actuarial data.  

Please help us make this project a success.  If you have a use for this type of data and analytics, or if you have data to contribute, please take a few moments to inform us how we can help by filling out this brief Data Users Survey.