As DOE Releases IRA Rebate Program Guidelines, ACCA Fights for Quality Contractors
August 15, 2023
By Sean Robertson ACCA Site posted August 1, 2023
At the end of July, the U.S. Department of Power (DOE) produced its lengthy-expected rules for condition power offices to employ the Inflation Reduction Act’s household rebate packages. Collectively, the (freshly renamed) Residence Effectiveness Rebates Application (Residences) and Property Electrification and Equipment Rebates Application (HEEHR) are envisioned to provide $8.8 billion in rebates for residential vitality performance advancements, largely specific to small-to-moderate money homes. Go through additional in ACCA’s member-distinctive IRA Resource Center.
With rebates up to $14,000 and 100% of improvement cost, these plans could tremendously expand the household effectiveness market. Which is a big opportunity for savvy contractors but will likely attract new competitors. In simple fact, application files explicitly record House Depot, Ace, and Lowes as crucial implementation associates.
Systems like warmth pumps can be complicated. With no focus to proper education and top quality installation, ACCA is pretty concerned that inexperienced installers will undercut good quality contractors and leave consumers with methods that increase their strength expenses when creating their properties significantly less comfortable – a black eye for our industry. Which is why ACCA has been performing with its point out and area Allied Contracting Organizations (ACOs), the Nationwide Association of Condition Electricity Officers (NASEO), and the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) to make certain that these systems prioritize quality set up and assist contractor-led instruction initiatives.
Now that the DOE has unveiled its advice, point out energy workplaces have until January 2025 to submit their method patterns. Some states – notably Florida – may perhaps pick out not to participate, but most are anticipated to submit their packages within the following 60-90 times, generating this a crucial period of time for contractors and ACOs to weigh in on what these plans ought to glance like.
ACCA has created two files to assist quality software layout:
Items Committee co-chair Eric Woerner from A1 Mechanical of Dayton and four associates of the ACCA staff members introduced these assets at a July 11 assembly co-hosted by AHRI and NASEO and attended by about half the state power workplaces.
As this struggle shifts to the states, ACCA’s condition and neighborhood Allied Contracting Organizations will be vital allies in trying to get contractor-helpful method design and providing good quality contractors the within scoop on implementation designs. In point, the DOE tips say that “States are strongly inspired to create partnerships with and supply funding to” entities, which include “contractor companies.” IRA experts Maddie Koehler of NASEO and Cynthia Adams of Pearl Certification briefed ACCA’s ACOs at the ACCA 2023 Meeting and we’re performing to schedule a virtual update now that suggestions have been introduced.
There is cause for hope that our message is obtaining via! The DOE guidelines demand states to submit a “Consumer Defense Plan” that ought to “establish bare minimum high-quality set up standards” and build “QA procedures that enable the state to confirm and doc irrespective of whether installation benchmarks have been achieved.”
We’ll also need to do the job to fend off burdensome needs. Whilst the law alone helps make no point out of union-backed prevailing wage regulations for Residences and HEEHR, the DOE guidelines have to have a Group Positive aspects Plan that “might include” provisions this sort of as “paying at or over regional prevailing wages.”
ACCA will go on examining and developing products concerning the new DOE Rules and the relevant contractor instruction grants declared by DOE a week previously. In the meantime, it’s essential to remind your clients that even the most aggressive states will not likely have systems obtainable to customers until eventually 2024. ACCA’s IRA Source Middle has details about the greatly improved 25C, 25D, 45L, and 179D federal tax incentives offered today for household and professional shoppers at all income ranges in all 50 states.
Year-to-date U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters decreased 4.5 percent, to 1,144,989 compared to 1,198,888 shipped during that same period in 2022. Residential electric storage water heater shipments decreased 1.9 percent year-to-date, to 1,264,410 units, compared to 1,289,452 shipped during the same period in 2022.
Year-to-date U.S. shipments of commercial gas storage water heaters increased 6.8 percent, to 22,794 units, compared with 21,351 units shipped during the same period in 2022. Year-to-date commercial electric storage water heater shipments increased 51.2 percent, to 37,773 units, up from 24,983 units shipped during the same period in 2022.
Year-to-date U.S. shipments of gas warm air furnaces decreased 21.6 percent, to 756,609 units, compared with 964,540 units shipped during the same period in 2022. Year-to-date U.S. shipments of oil warm air furnaces decreased 36.2 percent, to 5,124 units, compared with 8,029 units shipped during the same period in 2022.
Year-to-date combined shipments of central air conditioners and air-source heat pumps decreased 12.2 percent, to 2,136,924 units, down from 2,434,073 units shipped during the same period in 2022. Year-to-date shipments of central air conditioners decreased 18.9 percent, to 1,166,808 units, down from 1,439,381 units shipped during the same period in 2022. The year-to-date total for heat pump shipments decreased 2.5 percent, to 970,116, down from 994,692 units shipped during the same period in 2022.