How To Find Cool Roof Incentives
Cool Roof, Incentive January 15, 2009
Today’s tip is about how to go about applying for rebates and or tax incentives for installation of a cool roof – especially in relation to utility rebates
There are three basic categories of financial cool roofing benefits: Utility rebates that help pay for a cool roof based on their ability to reduce energy, which is the focus of this tip. There is also federal legislation that provides a tax deduction, and incentives based on voluntary rating systems like LEED, which cool roofs are apart of.
Utility rebates programs usually don’t specifically call for cool roofs, but cool roofs fall under the category of an energy saving measure, especially for peak demand. So facility executive should check with their utility before making a product selection to see if money might be available. If the rebate is available, the utility will conduct a pre-installation inspection and calculate the rebate based on square footage and the nature of the facility.
After the roof is installed, the utility will again inspect the roof and monitor the energy savings. The value of the rebate will be based on the energy saved, and be awarded as a function of the roof’s square footage. That’s to say that the first cost of the roof doesn’t matter.
For new construction, if facility executives are able to demonstrate that a cool roof reduced the size of the HVAC system needed, that may help their case for an even larger rebate. This would need to be demonstrated with an energy model.
A typical utility rebate for a cool is about 20 cents per square foot.
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