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Early Engagement Path:

Incentive Rates and Requirements

The Early Engagement Path offers early engagement, design, construction and performance incentives.

Requirements

To receive the early engagement incentive: 

  1. Projects must complete a design charrette to discuss energy efficiency options for the building. 
At a minimum, the owner, architect and a NCMR program representative must be present. 
  2. Projects must still have flexibility in their design, projects cannot be past the design development stage.    

To receive the construction incentives:  

  1. The program will conduct a site visit to verify that the energy efficiency measures included in drawings were installed.
  2. After the verification stage, the Program will issue a Savings Verification Report with the final incentive value, and the construction incentive will be issued.  
  3. The building must perform better than code baseline to receive the incentive.  

To receive the design incentive: 

  1. Project must have received an early engagement incentive.  
  2. The incentive recipient must submit at a minimum, the architectural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing permits or construction drawings for energy modeling. COMchecks are recommended but not required.     
  3. Projects are welcome to submit their own energy models as long as they meet the following requirements: provides an energy code baseline compared to the proposed building design so the program can determine the building’s energy savings, includes a report of energy model inputs and the energy modeling tool used must be NEO or comply with ASHRAE 140. Common ASHRAE 140 compliant programs include eQuest, IES VE, Trane Trace 700, Carrier HAP and EnergyPro.    
  4. The design incentive will be issued after the Program provides a Savings and Incentive Report with the initial construction incentive estimate.    
  5. Projects receiving a 179D compliant energy model will receive the model in lieu of a design incentive.   

To receive the performance monitoring incentive:  

  1. Projects may receive the performance monitoring incentive after they have collected a year’s worth of meter data.   
  2. The building must not exceed more than 10% of the modeled yearly energy usage to qualify.   
  3. The project has a total of two years to produce one year’s worth of meter data aligning with the energy model. Energy monitoring can start after the building is occupied. The implementor will provide the energy usage data compared to the buildings modeled performance in quarterly reports to the customer. 

Incentive Rates

Incentive Recipient Small
<20,000 SF		 Medium
20,000–75,000 SF		 Large
>75,000 SF
Early Engagement First to Contact Program $1,500 $2,000 $2,500
Design Energy Modeling Lead $0.35/SF $0.25/SF
($15,000 max)		 $0.15/SF
($15,000 max)
Construction - Building with Standard HVAC Systems Building Owner $0.17/kWh $0.15/kWh $0.12/kWh
Construction - Building with Gas Unit Heaters and Gas-fired RTUs Building Owner $0.09/kWh $0.07/kWh $0.06/kWh
Construction - Building with Combined Electric HVAC Systems and Gas HVAC systems Building Owner $0.20/kWh $0.17/kWh $0.15/kWh
Construction - Building with Electric HVAC Systems Building Owner $0.55/kWh $0.50/kWh $0.45/kWh
Additional Construction Incentive for Early Engagement Building Owner $0.04/kWh $0.03/kWh $0.02/kWh
Performance Monitoring Building Owner $0.05/kWh
($75,000 max)		 $0.05/kWh
($75,000 max)		 $0.05/kWh
($75,000 max)
Green Building Certification Building Owner $0.20/SF $0.15/SF $0.10/SF
($15,000 max)
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