A few weeks ago our news pages touched on a special kind of special district — one that promotes and funds green energy projects.

Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo both are considering such districts, though with slightly different approaches to funding. And the idea caught the attention of The Economist, which wrote about similar programs in  Berkeley and other places in its Jan. 30 edition.

 One of the beauties of the program is that homeowners who would be hard-pressed to qualify for home equity loans can tap the fund. And they can use cash from the savings on their electric and gas bills to pay off the loans.  The Economist calls the idea “a promising way to defray the cost of going green.”

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