SolarCity has unveiled a Home Energy Loan[1] for energy efficiency upgrades that will make cleaner indoor air, greater comfort and lower energy bills more accessible to American homeowners. The typical U.S. family spends about $1,900 a year on home utility bills[2], a large portion of which is wasted. SolarCity estimates homeowners lose approximately $40 of every $100 spent on air heating and cooling to duct and air leakage alone[3].

SolarCity has set the standard for making solar simple, giving thousands of homeowners using solar panels the ability to pay less for solar electricity than they pay for utility power. Similarly, SolarCity's new energy efficiency financing option can reduce or eliminate the upfront cost of energy efficiency upgrades.

SolarCity's energy efficiency services include a comprehensive on-site home energy evaluation to diagnose the cause of high utility bills and energy loss, paired with a range of upgrades that lower energy costs and improve indoor air quality and comfort.

"SolarCity manages customers' energy needs with better, cleaner alternatives that lower costs and improve health and comfort," said Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity. "By making energy-saving measures more accessible and affordable, we're doing for energy efficiency what we've done for solar power."

SolarCity introduced energy efficiency services in 2010 and has more than 5,000 efficiency projects (out of more than 33,000 energy projects overall) completed or underway in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Texas.

The company is now extending its energy efficiency service offering to its east coast service areas in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C. SolarCity also supports a range of local energy efficiency loan programs-such as New Jersey's Clean Energy Program-to customize the best energy efficiency option for customers and help them take advantage of available rebates based on their location.

SolarCity offers homeowners a customized evaluation to identify specific inefficiencies in the home. SolarCity's proprietary software performs billions of calculations during each evaluation to produce a simple, comprehensive report that provides an overview of the opportunities to improve efficiency across nine categories, including air infiltration, insulation, heating and cooling and duct leakage.

Based on the personalized evaluation, SolarCity experts will recommend a prioritized list of home improvement options based on energy and cost savings to improve indoor air quality and comfort and generate thousands of dollars in savings on electricity, gas and oil costs.

Notes
1 Loan provided by Admirals Bank, an Equal Housing Lender. All loan applications are subject to credit approval

2 http://hes.lbl.gov/consumer/learn

3 Based on statistics from the U.S. Department of Energy and a SolarCity analysis of 250 homes

4 The one-year loan assumes the outstanding principal balance is paid in full by the first anniversary of the funding date