DOE’s Building Technologies Program has released a new calculator prepared by NREL that is a shortcut for calculating eligibility and compliance for energy efficiency tax deductions for a variety of the most common commercial building types. As I noted back on tax day (April 17), the requirement that an energy analysis be provided to prove eligibility for the tax credit was probably hindering some owners from claiming the tax credit. Building design professionals that prepared retrofit drawings and specs were probably not necessarily in the mode of preparing full 8760 energy analyses for some of these projects. And those consultants certainly weren’t going to offer that service at no cost. No doubt opportunities were missed to “buy down” the payback period for some energy conservation measures via the tax deduction. And some measures that didn’t have a suitable ROI without the tax deduction were probably not pursued by designers or owners.
A lot of that could be changed due to the introduction of this calculator. The calculator isn’t so much a calculation engine as it is a database of pre-simulated results, similar to the cool roof simulations prepared by ORNL. Owners or designers need only input six fields and choose from four pull down menus to determine whether the project could be eligible for window, lighting or HVAC/HW tax deductions. Once past the eligibility screening, a handful of efficiency inputs are needed for each of the new retrofit systems. From there the calculator determines the applicable tax deduction. It prepares a compliance printout which even shows the deduction eligibility using the three different IRS criteria that are available to choose from for this year. The printout also includes a list of statements for the designer or owner’s representative to sign off on as the document is then ready as backup for the tax deduction claim.
After going through the program for a few minutes, I found some changes were probably going to be needed. For example there were gaps in the available sizes for office buildings, with no calculation data available for office buildings between 8,250 square feet and 26,800 square feet. The calculator could be a valuable resource for owners that undertake efficiency enhancements but may not have an energy analysis available or funds to pay for such an analysis. Design consultants could also offer documentation from this calculator either as part of the base design services or at a very nominal cost in comparison to a full energy analysis.
