The Connecticut Green Bank has become the first government agency to successfully use private crowdfunding to provide private financing for solar incentive programs.
The Green Bank packaged $1 million of its loan programs and sold that bundle to solar crowdfunding platform Mosaic, which in turn offered it to its individual investors. For as little as $25, investors using the Mosaic platform could then financially back the bundle for a 5.5 percent yield over a 15-year term.
“The success of this initiative demonstrates … that there is a new market for residential solar financing through crowdfunding,” said Bryan Garcia, Connecticut Green Bank President and CEO.
The Green Bank provided the initial $5 million in funding for those solar loans. The bank then partnered with Sungage Financial to develop a first-of-its-kind formula using projected energy savings from the solar projects as a valuation to size the loans.
The $1 million worth of loans that were crowdfunded had originally supported the installation of 100 solar arrays in Connecticut.
