Tallarna Wins NYSERDA Award to Stimulate Actionable LMI Building Retrofits

Tallarna, a climate tech and finance platform for sustainable impact, today announced that it has been awarded a $1 million contract by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to stimulate actionable building retrofits in the Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) rental sector. This two-year contract will trigger a significant expansion of Tallarna's operations in the United States of America (USA).

Tallarna's award comes from NYSERDA's Innovative Market Strategies program. The company will work in partnership with design and solution providers including Cycle Retrotech and Tremco CPG Inc. to roll out its ?Decarbonization-as-a-Service' offering. Uniquely, Tallarna's ?as-a-Service' model guarantees retrofit performance (kWh, $) for up to 30 years, increases the availability of risk-managed private finance for landlords, and facilitates day-one energy bill savings for tenants.

New York State's ambitious climate laws and high proportion of LMI rentals make it the ideal recipient of Tallarna's mission to deliver financial, social, and environmental sustainability for all. In the UK, Tallarna's creation of financeable and insurable project business and financing cases has been transformative for landlords. For one municipality, it has made a 3,000-home retrofit actionable, with the majority of the capital costs being privately financed. Once completed, this will be one of the largest social housing retrofits of its kind in Europe.

Under New York City's Local Law 97, all buildings over 25,000 square feet must meet strict carbon emission limits. However, with high retrofit costs and an exhausted senior debt capacity, many landlords struggle to fund the necessary building upgrades. The introduction of Tallarna's ?Decarbonization-as-a-Service' offering will help overcome these barriers. The company's IP, software-led risk analytics and integrated Energy Savings Insurance (ESI), de-risks projects, enables a separate ownership model for clean energy assets, and introduces long-term, off-balance sheet private finance. At the same time, it sets down consistent parameters against which project income streams are valued and verified.

During this contract, Tallarna will tailor its above offering to the New York State retrofit market. Its software platform, KESTREL, will be recalibrated to reflect local building archetypes and pricing ? enabling it to run techno-economic feasibility assessments and investment-grade risk analytics on projects. At the same time, Tallarna will collaborate with global specialty property and casualty insurer, AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. (AmTrust), to explore how they incorporate secondary and tertiary retrofit benefits into their co-created ESI policy. Extending ESI's perimeter will increase NYS landlords' available loan-to-cost, reduce their cost of capital, and overcome their limited senior debt capacity. Tallarna has previously increased the scope of its ESI policy to support the creation of ?Equipment-as-a-Service' offerings.

Tim Meanock, CEO at Tallarna comments: "We believe in an equitable energy transition, one which benefits tenants, landlords, and funders. As such, we are delighted to be working with NYSERDA and our partners on scaling and actioning LMI retrofits. Our New York State expansion complements our recent launch of an ?Equipment-as-a-Service' offering, empowering net zero throughout the USA."

Doreen M. Harris, President and CEO, NYSERDA said: "It is exciting to see this innovative project move from concept to application as New York continues prioritizing the creation and adoption of scalable and standardized solutions for the housing industry statewide. NYSERDA looks forward to seeing the offerings that Tallarna and its partners develop to help improve access to clean energy and reduce energy costs for tenants while moving us ever closer toward New York's ambitious climate and clean energy goals."