PA House Energy — 2026-03-23

Thank you. Thank you.

Nick, will you please call the roll?

Representative Boyd.

On leave.

Representative Davidson.

On leave.

Representative Jarral.

Online.

Representative Pelley.

On leave.

representative Venkat here chair Causer here representative Armanini representative Barton on leave representative cook representative ham he's online online representative kale on leave representative Kephart on leave

Representative Rapp. She's online also. Online.

Representative Warner.

Here. Attendance is recorded. Proceed, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Chairwoman Fiedler. We know that we have a looming energy crisis across the Commonwealth. We need more energy. We need more energy on the grid. And so I'm looking forward to the testimony that we hear today and interested in how you can help us make that happen. So thank you very much.

All right. Good morning, Chair Fiedler, Chair Causer. Can you hear me?

Okay. How's that? Is that okay? Okay. All right. So good morning, Chair Fiedler, Chair Causer, and members of the House Energy Committee. I'm Abby Cadden and I have the honor of serving as the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority. Thank you for inviting me here today to provide testimony in support of the Authority. PETA is fortunate to have Chair Fiedler and Representative Cahill as active members of our Board of Directors. I'd also like to thank our other legislative board members, Senator Kamita and Senator Yall for their support. For my testimony, I'd like to provide a brief introduction to PETA, discuss our financing programs and highlight opportunities to further support energy and energy efficiency projects that feed power to the grid, reduce energy consumption and costs for customers, support cross-sector jobs, and increase energy independence. Governor Dick Thornburg signed Act 280 of 1982 into law, creating PETA, establishing its board of directors, and providing it powers to finance energy projects through grants, loans, loan guarantees, bonds, and notes. Since it was created, PETA has operated efficiently, carrying out high-impact programs, but with a small staff and without a stable ongoing source of revenue. PETA last received dedicated funding from the Commonwealth through the Environmental Stewardship and Watershed Protection Act, what we commonly refer to as Growing Greener Too, totaling $50 million from fiscal years 2005-2006 through 2009-2010. Those funds allowed PETA to financially support many meaningful projects, such as the expansion of a manufacturer of energy-efficient doors and windows, the production of dyes, a component in the fuel cell manufacturing process, the development and use of an innovative vehicle battery system, installations of combined heat and power systems powered by biofuels, purchases of more efficient propane, oil, and gas boiler systems, and many more diverse projects. For the past 16 years, PETA has continued to offer successful grant programs, but at a limited scale and with sporadic one-time infusions from DEP and the Public Utility Commission. Such infusions enabled PETA to create high-impact programs like the COVID-19 Restart Grants, which mitigated disruptions to energy projects during the pandemic. Through these grants, PETA provided financial support to employers to rehire workers, or hire additional workers to complete energy projects quickly and to purchase equipment to support the supply chain. While we are proud of PETA's grant programs, the authority has recently shifted its focus to develop new financial products that leverage PETA's funds to attract third-party capital, create a revolving loan fund, and offer credit enhancements to borrowers. This model efficiently deploys public funds, de-risks private investment and allows for funds from loan repayments to be recycled into new projects revolving loan fund programs are a highly efficient use of public funds as they stretch the useful life of every taxpayer dollar indefinitely and leverage private investment pen penvest operates under a similar structure and we hope to replicate their tremendous success through peta's bundle financing programs called the energy accelerator program petal launched the first two financing products under its energy accelerator program in 2024. the first product is the keystone energy efficiency program or keep home energy loan which assists pennsylvania homeowners with energy efficiency upgrades primarily funding heating ventilation and air conditioning projects Examples of improvements include air source and geothermal heat pumps, oil, gas, and propane boilers and furnaces, insulation, window and door improvements, and more. Under this program we've received over 588 loan applications and issued three million dollars in loans, and we were able to leverage private capital 10 to 1 for this program. The second product is the Municipal Opportunities for Retrofits and Energy Efficiency, or MORE, grant and loan, which removes barriers to affordable financing for local governments. This program offers grants up to $50,000 for Level 2 energy audits, project planning, and an interest rate buy-down to as little as 0% on the MORE loan. We awarded grants to 42 municipalities across the state, and several of the awardees are in the application for the more loan petto was able to leverage its funds three to one with private capital for this program a third product under the energy accelerator program is under development and we've been developing the solar for schools loan program as a complement to the department of community and economic development solar for schools grant program we're currently working to set up a pilot of this loan program which will be funded by a grant peta received to support schools in southwestern pennsylvania and we expect to issue the first loans this year at our february board meeting of peta's board of directors the board authorized staff to facilitate the issuance of bonds up to 50 million dollars to fund this program statewide last i will note that peta received 156 million dollars solar for all grant from the us epa in 2024 but we were compelled to put that effort on hold due to the epa's purported determination of the program nationwide. PETA is part of a multi-state coalition of grant recipients challenging the EPA's actions and we're hopeful the grant will be restored to the benefit of homeowners across the Commonwealth. While we are pleased to see strong interest in the financial products we currently offer, we have the capacity to do much more to meet market demand for capital dedicated to energy production, building efficiency and resiliency upgrades, manufacturing and innovation. The Pennsylvania General Assembly can maximize its support for energy projects across the state and be a supportive partner to PETA in several ways For example we identified updates to PETA governing statute that would allow Pennsylvania to tap into unrealized sources of power generation, deploy solutions for grid instability, and ensure that PETA is a long-term conduit for project financing. Specifically, PETA would greatly benefit from updates that allow it to support additional types of projects like energy storage and virtual power plants provide additional types of financial support like rebates and dividends initiate and engage in its own projects for example developing hydroelectric projects on state-owned dams and continuing peta's existence beyond the original 50-year term set by act 280 which will otherwise expire in 2032. additionally if state funds were appropriated to peta peta would be in in a stronger position to promote energy and energy efficiency projects at scale, which would in turn feed power to the grid, reduce energy consumption and cost for consumers, support cross-sector jobs, and increase energy independence. This public financing model has a strong track record in other states and at the federal government through programs like the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing, and has the potential to support critical projects through loans that return funds to be reinvested in the Commonwealth. We are proud to have served many small businesses, project developers, homeowners, schools, municipalities, and authorities across the state for 45 years. As concerns about energy costs and reliability persist, PEDA's role as a public financing authority will continue to be vital, and we look forward to expanding our financial offerings to best support Pennsylvanians and to meet market demand. Thank you again for your time and consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

You took my thunder away. I'm a small state, slightly southwest, from the great state of Pennsylvania. Good morning, Chair Schroeder and Chair Couser, members of the committee. My name is Billy Briscoe, and as mentioned, I am the CEO of the Clean Energy Fund of Texas. I would love to not reread the remarks that I've given to you in the one-pager and just really touch upon three points and then really get to the Q&A. The Clean Energy Fund of Texas was founded in 2021. I apologize. In 2021, and what differentiates from PETA is that we're what we call the non-chartered green bank. And what that really means—can I get some water? Thank you. What that really means is that we are not—we were not born of local or state legislative action. And that is to say we're not funded by state or local tax dollars. We are primarily funded by philanthropic capital for operational purposes and capital that we raise for deployment. We have a different bent towards deploying capital, different and apart from traditional private deployment of capital. It's mission-based, mission-critical. We looked for things that would suggest ability to pay, not necessarily all based on credit scores and those types of things. And we're really looking to fund renewable energy activity and participation in renewable energy products in underserved communities. As I mentioned, we were founded about five years ago. We spent the first three years really just operating around. Thank you so much. really just preparing to operate around that mission, getting the people in place, getting the facilities in place, honing, if you will, and understanding the marketplace, and really trying to figure out if Texans, which, as many of you know, happens to be the petrochemical capital, arguably, of the world, would really embrace the idea of renewable energy, and particularly renewable energy financing. Much to our surprise I guess I shouldn't say that But much to our surprise We were welcomed open handedly As you know Texas is a pretty big state And so I think that as we are Always looking for ways to throw Activity onto the grid Renewable energy is a desired Resource not only at the consumer level But also at the consumer level The last two years we've really hit some milestones. We spent the first three years, again, operational readiness, and the last two years, almost two years, really deploying capital. We've been able to amass about $18 million in deployable capital, secured or managed. We have about $4 million in actual loan activity. We've grown to the diversity of applicants in Texas. We now have loan activity in 30 of the 254 counties in the state. and we have been able to amass sort of a jewel, if you will, of 250-plus vetted contractors in the state that deploy, on the consumer side, that deploy renewable energy and solar and battery panels. As many of you know, a lot of our elderly community we're being taken advantage of, particularly on the solar side. And so as a condition to deploying capital through the Clean Energy Fund of Texas, we vet all our contractors, and it also serves as a way for us to get potentially new applicants. I will stop there and really would love to really engage you guys and answer any questions to the best of my ability. I look forward to those questions. Thank you so much.

Sure. So, yes, we can do much more. I think if you look at our energy development fund, we have about a million dollars. So you can imagine how limiting that is when you try to think of how do we scale up and increase the scope of projects. So while our first two products right now, we have a residential energy efficiency program, and we have a municipal energy efficiency program, you're looking the average loan on the residential side is probably about $11,000. They're eligible for loans up to $25,000, but we're seeing about $11,000 is the average. And then on the municipal side, you're going to see similar tens of thousands of dollars worth of projects, where as we want to look beyond that and be able to fund projects that are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, we have the capability to do it, and we have technical staff, and our goal is to really scale up, and we have ideas to do what we would implement first. So I think we want to increase our investment for the distributed energy and storage projects across the state. So I think that it's a statewide problem, and we acknowledge that we can be a statewide resource. The administrator for two of our, the Moore and Keep, have a vetted contractor network throughout the state, which we're actively working to grow with them. So we have reputable contractors doing these projects. I also think that, you know, not only the scale and the deployment of projects can increase across the state, but you're going to see that we can also attract additional, you know, lenders and interest from philanthropic organizations and other capital providers. So when you you have money to do big things people take you seriously and Philanthropic organizations will back you with resources So there's much more opportunity there in that space

Sure. So we have the residential and municipal right now, but there's a gap we've seen. So there are people come to us for help with projects, and we have to turn them away because we can't help them right now. We don't have the financial capacity to do that. And that kills me inside when we see a good, viable project come to us, and we have to say, sorry, here are some other people we know of who might be able to help you with resources for maybe below-market interest rates or other credit enhancements for projects. Because a lot of people are looking for loans. They're not just looking for grants. They're looking for just low cost of capital to finish their projects. And one specific example that's really been eating away at me is we met with a family farmer local to here a couple years ago. They have a $12 million biodigester project. Permits in hand, they're shovel-ready, they have a bank loan, they have an ag innovation grant, and they have a $2 million gap. And the return on investment of this project is only, like, it's insane. It's like five years or something very short. They're eligible for the tax credits. and the project has just been sitting for years now because of a $2 million gap. And these are farmers we want to help, and it's an income stream revenue for them to be able to get this biodigester project done. And it also will help defray costs by heating their farm, their hog farm. So there's all these benefits sitting there for people like farmers that I would love to help. So that's one example of a project where the market isn't, it's not meeting the market demand.

It's not specific in the statute. It's energy and energy efficiency. and then our board of directors has an energy development plan, which is a five-year plan that specifies the priorities, both where do we want to put our funding but also policy priorities. And really it's within that plan that's kind of like the pillar of the authority to really guide investment looking ahead five years. So that plan, I would say, really details the specific projects. But we're really open to any projects that, you know, agnostic of molecules or electrons, just how do we be more efficient and get more of those onto the grid? I mean we know that we need a lot more electricity a lot more energy on the grid Do you think if there were legislative changes to the statute governing PETA

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the goal is really how do we produce more energy and how do we be efficient about it? And you mentioned hydroelectric specifically. We have spoken with a developer who's interested in bundling up several projects across the state because Pennsylvania has over 3,300 dams. It's an incredible opportunity, and a lot of those are state-owned dams. So there's an opportunity there to work with developers, put hydro facilities on our state-owned dams, create a revenue source, potentially have a shared revenue, creating that power. And that's a new – all of this infrastructure is sitting there already, and we just need to work with an investor. So there's plenty of opportunity out there, and we have ideas, and we're talking to these partners actively. so I'd love to if there's opportunity to meet with all of you and maybe detail some of those conversations more specifically I'd be happy to do that. Thank you very much. Mr. Briscoe I didn't

what kind of projects do you specifically spearhead in your state? Sure thank you for the question. So we are charged with funding what we like to call supply-side and demand-side activities. So on the supply side, obviously it's solar, primarily solar and solar battery to help. On the consumer level, power generation at the home, but we're also looking to do on a commercial level, obviously, solar farms. And then on sort of the demand side is really retrofitting doors, windows, heat pumps, HVACs, roofs, those types of things that demand smaller amounts of energy, obviously, for the home envelope. And so while we have been stymied a little bit with some of the activity I've mentioned with SFA, our primary focus the last 18 months has been to deploy capital almost squarely into the consumer side. And so we've been growing our footprint in the state of Texas around helping homeowners and being opportunistic with small-scale commercial industrial projects.

Definitely commercial. I mean, I'm a consumer. From the consumer. Absolutely. These are not grants. We have some grant-type products, first-loss products, those types of things. But these are extensions of credit where homeowners or whomever borrows are expected to pay back and then pay it forward.

None. None. Zero. Okay.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

For our demographic, it's absolutely critical, right? We do not stand in competition with purely private capital. We're sort of market gap fillers. We provide capital, particularly on the consumer side, to borrowers who otherwise would not have an opportunity to participate in renewable energy projects because they'd be priced out of the market. we're allowed through concessionary capital to allow, again, a borrower to not pay 13%, 14%, 15% cost of capital and get somewhere around 8%, 9% where they can pair that expenditure with the savings and make it work for the household. And so from a consumer's perspective, it's definitely, but for us, we wouldn't have, they probably wouldn't have those kinds of things. Now, on the commercial side, you know, we have commercial PACE in Texas, and that's, I'm not certain Pennsylvania has something similar to commercial PACE, but those PACE products are usually designed for $1, $2 million and up, because at the end of the day, it takes the same transactional costs for a $2 million project as it does a $200,000 project. So they really, the state, our state PACE program really want larger programs, larger projects. So we are focused on $5,000 and below, offering products that, you know, the small stores and neighborhoods would never have an opportunity to take advantage of. And so I like to say, I like to think that we're providing the same sort of necessity with small and medium-sized deployments as we do with the consumer. Thank you.

First member question will come online from representative Rusnik Skip that. We're going to go to Representative Serrato joining us in person. Good morning. Thank you both for being here and providing your testimony. My question is going to be for Mr. Briscoe. I was wondering at this point, can you highlight the significant accomplishments and outcomes that the Clean Energy Fund of Texas has done, whether it's job creation or emissions reductions, that kind of thing for us?

Wonderful. Thank you. And when you do have those data points, would you mind following up and sending the information

Next question comes from Representative Williams. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just, before I get going with my question, I want to thank both you and Chair Causer for these hearings. Energy affordability right now is perhaps the thing I'm working on harder than anything else. And this committee has done a really, really nice job. Even though we kind of come at this subject from different orientations, I feel like we've done a nice job of having hearings about this stuff, discussing it out loud. It is the hardest working committee that I'm on right now, and I want to congratulate and thank both of you. My first question, I'm going to ask you both a related question but different. In Texas, I'm very interested about what I'm reading with regards to hyperscale generation to make room or make generation for hyperscale data centers. I'm seeing plants in development from anywhere from six to eight gigawatts of sequence natural gas generation with on-site solar and battery storage all working together. My question is about the regulatory landscape in Texas. Is the renewable component for hyperscale generation being built, I think it's in western Texas, a product of state law, or is that voluntary by the hyperscalers?

Sorry, I could barely, did you say free market capitalism?

So I just want to make sure I'm capturing the general idea correctly, which is when I see these hyperscale generation plants starting to be built or designed in Texas, the components of generation in those plants are free will of the people who are building the plants.

Okay, so that leads to my next question for PETA. is it occurs to me if we're truly in Pennsylvania talking about developing gigawatts of new power in our state, and we have not yet landed on where the power is going to be built relative to the meter. So if a hyperscale data center is to build that power behind the meter and it's only going to serve them, then we have less of a regulatory problem than if they build it somewhere else in the state to be either off-sourced or come into the PJM grid, be brought to them by an LSE or another supplier, at which point AAPS starts to come into play. And I don't know that we have either the financial capability as ratepayers or the physical capability to build enough Tier 1 and Tier 2 renewables for AAPS to be even physically possible. Is it time to start reimagining our 20-year-old statute in anticipation of hyperscale generation?

I would encourage you to go back and talk to PETA because the statutory imprimatur that enables you to get grants to build Tier 1 renewables comes as a function of APS. So at some point, we're going to have to start discussing whether or not, for example, 8% of our generation still needs to come from renewables if we can't physically get there. So thank you.

Representative Armanini. Thank you very much, Chair. And thank you both again for your comments. I guess my question, PETA, you mentioned that you are working for Pennsylvanians trying to help them make life more affordable. In my district, probably my number one call is constituents wanting natural gas in their homes.

Is that still a part of PETA that they would work with my communities on bringing natural gas into their areas?

Right. What what I want is to be able to have natural gas into their homes. they need the natural gas line, not so much a new furnace or a new water heater. They just want to have the ability of natural gas so they're not having to rely 100% on electric or fuel oil and so forth. I see. Okay.

With knowing that, we're still pushing solar to the extreme, not against renewables, but as Representative Williams said, is it achievable?

Sure. Well, I think one point is we are here as a resource for consumer choice, whatever people choose. If they have an energy project and it meets our statutory authority, we will look at it. We will look at the projects. our board will vote on these projects. For distributed energy, I think we have a good relationship with the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Dominance Financing Office. I've worked with them for several years to do a loan guarantee with them. And I think our partnership with them can help look at the scale, I think, of what you're speaking to for increasing baseload energy. And, you know, anything of that size will be several years out, and I think we need to take actions now that, you know, to meet that, you know, five, six, seven year where those larger projects are going to be out. We have to do something now to meet the current demand that we're experiencing. So I think there's opportunity there. When we worked with DOE's, formerly the Loan Programs Office, the issue we ran into was that the cost of capital was too high for even us to engage in. We have a million dollars and we'd be using more. We couldn't even afford every dollar we had in our bank account to get out the loan guarantee to do these million-dollar projects that we were looking at, $100 million projects that we were looking at. So I think the partnerships are there. We're just trying to figure out how to best use our resources to do things like that to support baseloid energy in those projects that will help us get there.

So thank you for the question. And we're focused principally on solar, battery, on the supply side, supply maintenance side, if you will, management side. And then HVAC, heat pumps, really taking off in Texas for a lot of the right reasons. But also pre-solar dev, like roof replacements, doors, windows, those kinds of things. So on the supply side, it's really just been to date solar, but we're also looking to do some renewables around water. And on the demand side, we're talking about energy efficiency products, again, like insulation, doors, windows, heat pumps, those types of things.

Pretty close. Sounds about right, yes.

So on the – I'll answer it in two ways. Obviously, lack of sunshine, that becomes a big problem with the solar. On the demand-side activity and demand-side renewable energy products, possibly. I mean, a more efficient HVAC system, heat pump, more insulated house envelope will reduce the demand and the need for energy, right? Obviously, on the supply side with solar, if you don't have the days, you don't have the days. But you can do some things that curb behavior to reduce your draw, your footprint. And I think those types of things would work nicely in Pennsylvania.

Thank you.

yeah so during all all of these questions that's what comes to mind immediately is storage storage storage um how do we shave off these peaks during you know peak demand during the day um and you know run off of batteries and how do we scale up batteries and um make sure they're deployed at you know critical facilities across the state um i think that's a really important resiliency investment. And I just can't stress enough that storage is going to be so key for us

Thank you so much. Thank you both for being here. I do want to note for the record, Representative Kephart was here. He had to step back out. I know it's a busy morning, but just for the record. All right. I think that is everything. Again, thank you both so much for being here in person. Thank you so much for your testimony. And with that, this meeting is adjourned at 1119. Have a great day.