Then, last year, Duprey had a conversation with a lender who asked why New Hampshire didn’t have a C-PACE program. Duprey had a vague memory of the term but asked for more information about the program.

After listening to the lender’s explanation, he realized the model had potential to spur development of multifamily residential buildings — homes the state direly needs. If a developer uses C-PACE to finance the energy components of a new build — heat pumps, solar panels, insulation, efficient windows — they can take out a smaller mortgage for the construction and need less equity to fund the development, he said. That frees up money for building more units.

For Duprey, any benefits for energy efficiency or clean energy are secondary. ​“It’s a let’s-help-get-more-housing-built loan,” he said. ​“It’s great if it does extra things for energy.”

So Duprey asked the staff at the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority, of which he is vice chair, to investigate the existing C-PACE legislation and find out why it didn’t work. He discovered that the original version of the law put too many restrictions on the program to make it appealing. Municipalities were asked to carry too much of the administrative burden, he said. Banks were wary of a new kind of loan coming in and competing with their conventional products, Evans-Brown said.

Duprey, a former chair of the state Republican committee, began reaching out to his contacts in the legislature and the business community to work on a C-PACE overhaul that would eliminate these barriers.

The resulting bill has garnered widespread approval. Municipalities like that it places the responsibility of administering C-PACE on the state business finance authority, rather than individual cities and towns. To address banks’ concerns, the program will operate on a consent model that requires the approval of the lender that holds the first mortgage. Banks have also gained a lot of experience with these loans in the 15 years since the original law passed and are more comfortable with the model now.

Nationally, 36 states have active C-PACE programs, according to numbers from nonprofit PaceNation. Last year, these programs saw $2.42 billion in investment, the biggest year on record, the organization reports. In Connecticut, which in 2012 was the first state to adopt C-PACE, more than $380 million in financing has supported 415 projects, said Mackey Dykes, executive vice president of financing programs for the Connecticut Green Bank, which administers the state’s program.

“It’s just benefit after benefit,” he said. ​“For no taxpayer cost, we’re able to drive these outcomes by taking these public tools and bringing in private lenders.”

The passage of the New Hampshire bill is a rare and very welcome example of bipartisan cooperation, in a particularly fractious moment for any climate action, said Evans-Brown. 

“Isn’t it great that we get to kick off the legislative session with something good?” he said.