New Jersey Clean Energy Loans (NJ CELs)

• Your business and its affiliates must have fewer than 750 employees. Count each full-time, part-time and temporary worker equally, including agency and leased staff; unpaid volunteers do not count. Affiliates include entities under common control or where one can control another.
• For scoring and other programme tests, full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs use 40 hours per week or 2,080 per year, combining part-time and seasonal hours. Include direct affiliates and round the total to the nearest whole number. Direct affiliates include controlling entities or persons, ownership of at least 30% in the applicant, applicant-owned entities at that level named in the application/agreement or benefiting directly, and other named or directly benefiting entities.
• Infrastructure or installation work must physically take place in New Jersey. For business creation or expansion, you need a physical New Jersey office, facility or co-location facility and at least 50% of FTE employees working in New Jersey. If the loan actually pays for infrastructure or installation, that project-location rule applies even when the application describes business expansion.
• You must be in good standing with New Jersey’s labour and environmental departments. A tax-clearance certificate no older than 180 days is required when financing is approved, although it is not required at initial application. The project must be economically feasible.
• Eligible borrower forms can include for-profit businesses, sole proprietors, independent contractors, cooperatives, employee-owned entities, Tribal enterprises, government-owned corporations, and jurisdiction-designated charitable, religious, nonprofit or philanthropic institutions. All must meet NJ CELs conditions and use the loan for an eligible business purpose.
• There is no minimum annual revenue, but repayment underwriting requires a debt-service coverage ratio of at least 1.00x: income available for debt payments must cover those payments. Where historical business accounts and recurring outside owner income do not meet the test, projections and their assumptions may demonstrate it for the fiscal year after the agreed pause in loan payments (payment moratorium) ends.
• You need a term sheet, letter of intent, draft agreement, commitment letter or similar document from an eligible private lender before formally applying. Use an NJEDA Premier Lender or CDFI Premier Lender, or another eligible finance entity that has originated, maintained and serviced more than $5 million in clean-energy loans over three years. The match cannot be a federal- or state-funded loan, including a government-guaranteed loan such as SBA 7(a).
• You must score at least 50 out of 100 on the programme table. It awards points for clean-technology experience, at least two top-level (C-level) executives, an Overburdened Community location, NJ ownership certification, FTE count, total loan size and the private-to-NJEDA financing ratio. Check the official table before applying; meeting basic eligibility alone is insufficient.
• You cannot participate in another SSBCI-funded programme in New Jersey or another state. Other support may be combined subject to the other programme’s rules, but federal funding must not duplicate benefits for the same use or purpose. Multiple NJ CELs loans must serve different business purposes, and the borrower’s outstanding NJEDA balance, including affiliates, cannot exceed $10 million at any time.
• If you, someone controlling your business, or someone owning or controlling more than 1% of its stock has applied for or received a New Jersey cannabis licence or certification, the application is ineligible and its fee is not refunded.

SSBCI money must serve a business purpose. It cannot purchase goodwill or securities, finance lobbying, reimburse funds owed to an owner, including their investment, repay payroll or sales taxes held in trust, or repay overdue income taxes without an agreed payment plan. Buying an owner’s interest is excluded except for a qualifying transaction creating broad employee ownership through an employee-owned entity that holds a fully diluted majority interest.

Buying or holding property mainly for sale, lease or investment, without actively using it for the business, is generally excluded as passive real-estate investment. For financed new buildings, your business must occupy and use at least 60% of its rentable floor area after an occupancy permit or equivalent approval. For acquisition, renovation or reconstruction of existing buildings, it must occupy at least 51% of its rentable floor area within 12 months after acquisition, renovation or reconstruction and may permanently lease at most 49%; loan funds cannot improve the portion leased to a third party. Rentable floor area includes common areas such as lobbies and bathrooms, but excludes outside areas and vertical spaces such as stairs and elevators. A property-holding company can qualify even without using the property itself. This exception requires all rentable space to be leased to affiliated operating businesses, the same sublease restrictions, the operating company to guarantee repayment or borrow jointly, both companies’ use-of-proceeds and principal certifications, personal repayment guarantees from each individual owning at least 20% of either company, and a written lease lasting at least the loan term. A separate exception for construction loans originally no more than $500,000 requires immediate use, no owner/relative/affiliate residence, the lender to assess and issue the loan specifically for construction or refurbishment, no other SSBCI loan on the building, and no automatic conversion to long-term financing that continues to rely on SSBCI support. Clean-energy and all NJ CELs conditions still apply.

Federal borrower rules exclude speculative price-trading businesses except incidental legitimate risk management or normal trade; pyramid-selling businesses; illegal activities, including relevant direct and indirect marijuana businesses; businesses earning more than half their annual net revenue from lending, except eligible Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) or Tribal enterprise lenders that neither accept deposits nor are bank holding companies; and businesses earning more than one-third of gross annual revenue from legal gambling. The Tribal SSBCI-participant exception permits non-gaming uses, but never gaming uses. Borrowers must certify that programme-defined principals have no conviction for a sex offence against a minor. Principals include a sole proprietor, every partner, or for other entities every director, the five highest-paid executives/officers/employees, and every direct or indirect owner of at least 20%. Lender-insider, immediate-family and related-interest conflicts are excluded under the federal banking relationship definitions.

Construction, reconstruction, demolition, alteration, custom fabrication, repairs or maintenance, including painting and decorating, costing at least $2,000 generally trigger New Jersey prevailing-wage and affirmative-action requirements. Prevailing wage means workers must receive at least the rate set by the New Jersey labour department for the project’s locality. Affirmative action includes equal employment opportunity and good-faith efforts to employ minority and women workers against county goals, with documented workforce reports. NJEDA can exempt contractors from the specified good-faith procedures where their union’s workforce already meets the applicable goals.

For covered construction contracts, the project owner, agent, trustee or lender must withhold 10% of each payment until the contract is 50% complete. After notifying NJEDA’s Affirmative Action Compliance Officer and receiving confirmation of substantial compliance, withhold 5% of each subsequent payment. NJEDA may authorize release of the remaining withheld money at approximately 90% completion after receiving an acceptable Affirmative Action Completion Certificate. These payment-retention rules have exemptions: work at a landlord-owned facility where the landlord is a party to the contract and the recipient leases less than 55% of the facility, including agreed future leases; construction starting more than two years after an NJEDA commitment letter and first assistance payment; and work necessary to prepare a facility for operations where no NJEDA assistance is received until construction is complete. The 55% affirmative-action threshold is separate from the 35% prevailing-wage threshold below.

Contractors and subcontractors on covered public work must register with the state labour department. The wage duty also covers directly or indirectly associated work, such as a new roof supporting solar panels. If only part of a facility is the qualified project site, distinct unrelated work without state assistance is outside that duty; if the entire complex is the qualified site, all work on the premises is covered. The application’s project location determines the qualified site. Equipment-only financing avoids the wage requirement where making it operational costs less than $2,000 in assembly/installation; the FAQ states it applies where those costs exceed $2,000. Under NJEDA’s general rules, a landlord’s construction contract can be exempt from prevailing wage when the recipient leases less than 35% of the facility, including agreed future leases, and the landlord is a party to that contract. This is assessed per contract: a separate contract made by the recipient without the landlord remains covered. The rules also exclude construction beginning more than two years after the approval/commitment and first assistance payment, unless another law, rule or regulation requires prevailing wage.

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• Funding may be oversubscribed; accepted applications may face delays or receive no investment.[^c3]

Start with NJEDA’s eligibility self-assessment and scoring table on the programme page. Secure the required private-lender document, then apply through the NJ CELs online application. Pay the application fee to complete submission. Programme questions go to njcels@njeda.gov.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis without a current closing date. Funding may be oversubscribed: further funding is anticipated but its timing is uncertain, so acceptance of an application may lead to delays or no investment.