Rebates

The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) provides financial assistance to agricultural producers and rural small businesses in rural America to purchase, install, and construct renewable energy systems, make energy efficiency improvements to non-residential buildings and facilities, use renewable technologies that reduce energy consumption, and participate in energy audits and renewable energy development assistance.

Renewable energy projects for the Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvement Guaranteed Loan and Grant Program include wind, solar, biomass and geothermal, and hydrogen derived from biomass or water using wind, solar, or geothermal energy sources. These grants are limited to 25% of a proposed

Note: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 repealed section 54C of the Internal Revenue Code, which authorized the use of New CREBs. IRS Notice 2018-15  announced that the IRS will no longer process applications for or issue allocations of New CREBs. The summary below describes CREBs before they were repealed, and is here for historical purposes only. 

Clean renewable energy bonds (CREBs) may be used by certain entities -- primarily in the public sector -- to finance renewable energy projects. The list of qualifying technologies is generally the same as that used for the federal renewable energy

Note: See the supplemental Sales & Use Tax Topics: Renewable Energy Components Form for more information.

Colorado enacted S.B. 07-145 in April 2007, authorizing counties and municipalities to offer property or sales tax rebates or credits to residential and commercial property owners who install renewable energy systems on their property. 

Eligible renewable energy property is defined as "any fixture, product, system, device or interacting group of devices that produce electricity from renewable resources, including, but not limited to, photovoltaic systems, solar thermal systems, small wind systems, biomass systems, or geothermal systems."

The incentive is administered at the local level by

Effective Sept. 21, 2022, DC has adopted the Clean Energy DC Building Code Amendment Act of 2022 (D.C. Law 24-177) which calls for the District to adopt an NZE building code that applies to the new construction or substantial improvement of any building subject to the Commercial Provisions of the DC Energy Conservation Code, including commercial buildings and residential buildings taller than 3 stories. Regulations for this law must be finalized by the Mayor by December 31, 2026.

Currently the District has a voluntary Net Zero Building Code that will serve as the basis for the Net-Zero-Energy standard

In 2007, Minnesota legislation modified the state's 2001 voluntary renewable energy objective to create a mandatory renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Public utilities (i.e., investor-owned utilities), generation and transmission electric cooperatives, municipal power agencies, and power districts operating in the state are required to have at least 25% of retail electricity sales be generated or procured using eligible renewable sources by 2025, with a higher standard for Minnesota's nuclear utility, Xcel Energy. 

In 2013, H.F. 729 created an additional requirement that all public utilities have 1.5% of retail electricity sales be generated or procured using solar energy by 2020 and set

Locally Assessed Renewable Energy Property

Solar photovoltaic (PV), including agrivoltaics and floatovoltaics, and wind energy facilities with a capacity of 2 megawatts (MW) AC or less are assessed locally for property taxes. Additionally, low impact hydro, geothermal, and biomass facilities with a capacity of 2 MW or less and which were placed in service prior to January 1, 2010, are also assessed locally for property taxes. In assigning value to renewable energy property, local assessors are required to use the cost approach outlined in the Assessors' Reference Library. Assessors must also examine the sales comparison and income approaches, both described in

Note: HB 2201 of 2015 requires the Public Utility Commission to investigate and adopt new net metering and interconnection rules. The bill prohibits cross-subsidization of ratepayers potentially caused by net metering tariffs and limits IOUs from allowing more than 3% of aggregate load to be generated by solar power. The Commission opened a new proceeding (GO 258.3) in September 2018 to investigate the state's net metering rules. The summary below describes the current net metering rules. 
Eligibility and AvailabilityNet metering in West Virginia is available to all retail electricity customers. System capacity limits vary depending on the

The South Carolina Public Service Commission (PSC) adopted simplified interconnection guidelines for small distributed generation (DG) in December 2006.  South Carolina's interconnection guidelines apply to Duke Energy Progress, Duke Energy Carolinas, and Dominion Energy. These guidelines address interconnection of renewable- energy systems and other forms of DG in three levels -

1. Streamlined interconnection process for a certified inverter based generating unit up to 20 kW
2. Fast Track for interconnection for systems larger than 20 kW up to 2 MW
3. For larger interconnection systems greater than 2 MW requiring interconnection study.

The customer may submit a formal Pre-Application Report request

With the passage of Initiative 937 in 2006, Washington became the second state after Colorado to pass a renewable energy standard by ballot initiative. Initiative 937, which was enacted as the Energy Independence Act (EIA), calls for electric utilities that serve more than 25,000 customers in the state of Washington to obtain 15% of their electricity from new renewable resources by 2020 and to undertake all cost-effective energy conservation. Investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities, rural electric cooperatives, and public utility districts are subject to this standard.* Of Washington's 62 utilities, 18 are considered qualifying utilities, representing about 80% of Washington's load

Idaho does not have a statewide net-metering policy. However, each of the state's three investor-owned utilities -- Avista Utilities, Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power -- has developed a net-metering tariff that has been approved by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC). The framework of the utilities' net-metering programs is similar, in that each utility's original program: (1) offers net metering to customers that generate electricity using solar, wind, hydropower, biomass or fuel cells; (2) limits individual system size to 100 kilowatts (kW); (3) limits aggregate net-metered capacity to 0.1% of the utility's peak demand in a baseline year (1996