Explore Your Financing Options
Get the Most Bang for Your Buck
Thanks to several budget-neutral financing options, your smart lighting upgrade project can transform streetlight expenditures into valuable city assets right away. And in some cases, they’re also cash-flow positive and won’t show up as debt in your budget.
Financing that Fits You
Our options include the following…
Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs)
An EPC finances your upgrade through energy and maintenance savings while directing some of those funds back into your community. The savings generated pay for all project costs, freeing up money in your budget right away without ever putting you into debt. In addition, we provide maintenance services for the full contract term with no additional outlays and assume all maintenance risk.
Tax-Exempt Lease Purchase Structures (TELPs)
In a TELP structure, you use energy savings to lease-to-own your upgrade. Funds originally earmarked for maintaining and powering costly, out-of-date equipment are simply redirected to the new, more efficient system. TELPs offer extremely low interest rates, appropriate annually, and don’t show up as debt on your balance sheet.
General Obligation (GO) Bonds
GO bonds let you pay for your upgrade through taxation, revenues from the project itself, and any available municipal funds—all at low interest rates. Unlike an EPC or TELP, these bonds involve taxpayers and may require voter approval.
Self-Financing
You may have the option to self-finance your upgrade using existing operations and maintenance or capital budgets. In this plan, you take on all the costs and reap all the benefits of an upgraded system.
As part of our turnkey service, we help with:
Optimal rate and terms.
We canvass a pool of established lenders to find the best interest rate and help structure repayment terms that offer the best value to your community.
Utility financing negotiation.
We negotiate with utility companies to assist in purchasing your streetlight assets.
Federal incentives and grants
Finding all municipal, state/province and federal incentives and grants applicable to your project. RTE Energy works on your behalf to secure all available forms of financial assistance for the project. We have successfully obtained millions of dollars in incentives and grants for our clients.