Santa Barbara County may become the latest government in California to offer its residents an innovative new way of financing the installation of solar panels. The county’s Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday in Santa Maria, Calif., to vote on a new program called the Elective Municipal Program to Optimize Water, Energy and Renewables — or emPowerSBC, for short. If adopted, the program would provide loans for property owners to add energy- and/or water-saving technologies to their homes. In turn, the funds would be repaid not through monthly payments but through a surcharge on the owner’s property taxes.

This innovative approach is sometimes called Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing — and it’s gaining popularity, both in California and beyond. In California, the City of San Francisco in February announced the launch of GreenFinanceSF, which provides loans for a range of green property upgrades, including solar panels, while San Diego County is developing a PACE approach through its California FIRST Program. What’s more, states as far away as Maine have recently adopted a property-assessed approach to facilitating the adoption of solar panels and energy-efficient technologies.

As for the specifics of Santa Barbara County’s emPowerSBC program, eligible property upgrades would include energy- and water-efficiency retrofits, along with solar water heating systems and photovoltaic (PV) panels. According to the Santa Maria Times, the program could

create as many as 900 local jobs, representing 40 percent of those lost in construction trades during the recession. In addition, the program will induce $131 million in local investment and $346 million in economic output over the next 10 years.

If approved on Tuesday, the emPowerSBC program would be launched April 22 — the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.