Incentives

Consumers, businesses, and governments can access a wide variety of federal, state, provincial, and local-government incentives to advance green building adoption across the region. This page is an effort to provide a centralized location to list and detail these incentives.

Federal Incentives

Canada

ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes

In 2007, the federal government launched the ecoENERGY Retrofit – Homes program, which is available to owners of single family homes including detached, semi-detached and low rise multi-unit residential buildings. Property owners can qualify for federal grants by improving the energy efficiency of their homes, and reducing their home's impact on the environment.

Grant amounts vary, but apply to the installation, replacement, and upgrading of heating, cooling, and ventilation systems, domestic hot water, windows and skylights, insulation, and water-conserving fixtures.

The maximum grant one can receive per home or multi-unit residential building is $5,000; whereas the total grant amount available to one individual or entity for eligible properties over the life of the program is $500,000.

United States

Residential Solar and Fuel Cell Tax Credit

The Residential Solar and Fuel Cell Tax Credit may provide a tax credit up to USD$2,000 for installation of a solar power, hot water heating, ad $500 per 0.5 kW for fuel cells.

Renewable Energy Production Incentive

This legislation provides incentive payments for electricity produced and sold by new qualifying renewable energy facilities. Qualifying systems are eligible for annual incentive payments of 1.5¢ per kilowatt-hour (in 1993 dollars and indexed for inflation) for the first 10-year period of their operation, subject to the availability of annual appropriations in each federal fiscal year of operation.

State and Provincial Incentives

Washington

Text to be added.

Oregon

Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit

The 35 percent five-year Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit is available to projects that fulfill certain energy conservation, equipment efficiency and renewable energy systems requirements. A pass-through option is also available for businesses that choose to pass their tax credit onto a partner in exchange for an equivalent cash payment. The credit is available for projects in areas such as energy-efficiency, high-performance home building, renewable energy. (Oregon Deparment of Energy)

Oregon Business Energy Solutions Program

Provides cash incentives for upgrades to retrofit rental apartments, new construction of commercial and industrial buildings, improvement the energy efficiency of industrial water, wastewater, and treatment processes, and the installation of solar water or solar PV systems. (Energy Trust of Oregon, Inc.)

Alaska

Alaska Home Energy Rebate Program

Alaska homeowners who wish improve their homes' energy efficiency can receive a rebate for some or all of their expenditures. Rebates are dependent upon the relative amount of efficiency gained during the updates. The Home Energy Rebate program provides rebates up to $10,000 to homeowners who improve the energy efficiency of their homes. In addition, the Rebate program may provide a $7,500 rebate for qualified new 5 Star Plus homes. (Alaska Housing Finance Corporation)

British Columbia

LiveSmart B.C.

The province of British Columbia offers sales tax exemptions on a wide range of green building materials and technologies, including Energy Star qualified doors, windows, and skylights, renewable energy generation equipment, ground source and air source heat pumps, and other home heating appliances.

Solar B.C.

On July 17, 2008, the province introduced this CAN$10 million program to encourage the installation of solar hot water systems. The program, which is administered by the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association, offers a $1,000 point-of-sale discount to individual households on solar hot water installations, and a variety of other incentives for municipal buildings, schools, social-housing developments, and First Nations communities. The SolarBC? program will last two years.

Local Government Incentives, In-Region

King County Commercial LEED Grant

This program provides funding to projects built in King County, outside of the City of Seattle, that meet stringent criteria for resource conservation, and help educate the public about the importance of green building. Commercial, institutional and multifamily projects seeking LEED certification are eligible for grant awards between $20,000- $30,000 depending on performance level achieved. Grants are funded through the Department of Natural Resources and Parks.

Seattle/King County Residential BuiltGreen Grant

This grant provides funding for single-family residential and community development projects to help offset the cost of certifying and designing innovative green projects throughout Seattle and King County. Eligible single-family homes may receive up to $5,000, while multi-family and community development projects may receive up to $20,000.

Portland Green Investment Fund

This is a competitive grant program that supports innovative green building projects in Portland. In the current round of funding, a total of $425,000 is available and the maximum grant amount for any project is $425,000. Industrial, multi-family residential, commercial, and mixed-use public and private organizations may apply. The fund supports early building and site-related project activities that examine the potential and identify the means to realize an exemplary, comprehensive green building project. GIF grants are secondarily intended to help offset the incremental hard costs of the green building measures or strategies that most strongly contribute to the building’s ability to meet the GIF goals and priorities.

Local Government Incentives, Other Regions, Non-Government Organizations

Green Building Incentives that Work

This white paper prepared by a national association of developers surveys the county and examines a wide range of local government incentives to encourage green building. Approached consiered include priority in building permit processing and plan review, tax incentives, particularly property tax abatements, for projects achieving LEED Silver or better certification, and increased Floor-to-Area (FAR) ratios, which allow a developer to construct more building area than allowed by applicable zoning. (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties)

City of Cincinnati LEED Property Tax Exemption

The city offers property tax abatement for buildings that meet LEED standards. Neither residential nor commercial LEED projects have to demonstrate financial need to be approved for the tax abatement. Multi-unit, mixed-use, commercial, and industrial structures are eligible based on the project and an agreement that must be executed before construction begins.