Greener Homes NH Initiative

New Hampshire Housing is developing a new program to dramatically improve the energy performance of multifamily rental housing serving low-income households. The primary goal of this program is to reduce energy costs, increase building comfort, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses.

The Greener Homes Program will connect developers and property owners with an array of federal, state and utility incentives for energy retrofits, energy upgrades, and solar power systems. Many of these incentives are available because of the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, which provides hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for the deployment of clean energy technologies. 

Owners of existing multifamily properties will be encouraged to assess the energy performance of their facilities via a process known as energy benchmarking, to identify buildings that are good candidates for energy improvements. The next step will be an energy audit to identify the most cost-effective measures for improving energy performance. 

During this process, NH Housing will provide developers/owners with information on available federal, state, and utility incentive programs to provide rebates, loans, grants, and tax incentives to finance clean energy projects. 

Additional information will be posted on this page as the Greener Homes Program develops.

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Solar For All Program

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the state of New Hampshire $43.5 million to fund solar electric arrays to reduce energy costs for low-income households.  The NH Dept. of Energy was the lead applicant for this grant, and NH Housing and the NH Community Loan Fund were co-applicants. While final budget awards are being worked out with EPA, NH Housing is likely to receive approximately $24 million to be spent over five years. 

NH Housing’s Solar for All program will provide grants and low-interest loans for rooftop or ground mount solar arrays at existing multifamily buildings, or for new construction projects.

In addition, the program will also develop off-site community solar farms.

The output from these large-scale solar systems will be exported to the electrical grid, and a portion of the revenues from selling these exports will be distributed to low-income multifamily tenants in the utility’s service territory.

Funding for this program will not be available to NH Housing until January 2025. NH Housing will launch the program later in the year.

Additional information will be posted on this page as the Solar for All Program is being developed. 

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For questions regarding these programs, please email energy@nhhfa.org.