At the onset of 2012, Bryan Garcia set out to bring private financing to Connecticut’s clean energy industry.
As the president and chief executive of the newly renamed state Clean Energy Finance & Investment Authority, Garcia was charged with transforming the former Connecticut Clean Energy Fund from a subsidy-supplying organization to a finance organization for the clean industry, a green bank of sorts.
“We were really at the point where we were forming a new organization,” Garcia said.
By spurring clean energy development through financing, the idea was to encourage private financing to make its way into the Connecticut industry and help technologies such as solar power because less reliant on direct government funding.
To that end, CEFIA formed numerous programs this year designed to make the clean energy industry seek out private financing. Those programs include the Residential Solar Investment Program, which allows homeowners to install solar cells at no upfront costs by having a third party own the system and sell the power to the residents.
Connecticut went from having every public $1 invested in residential solar resulting in $1 in private investment to generating $6 in private financing.
“Those are the big things that we want to see happening in this market,” Garcia said.
CEFIA is also working on the state’s new commercial property assessed clean energy programs, where municipalities and private financers help businesses pay for renewable and energy efficiency upgrades.
So far, private financers Ameresco, Bostonia Partners, Citigroup, Clean Fund, Peoples Bank, Structured Finance Associates, Urban Energy Advisors, and Wells Fargo have signed onto the program.
“Wait for 2013. It is going to be bigger than 2012,” Garcia said. “That is really the year where we will show results.”
