Save Money on Home Improvements and Your Energy Bill!
With the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), more households can lower their energy costs and help combat climate change. New incentives will be available over the next decade to help you choose cleaner and healthier electric home appliances, switch to electric vehicles, and add solar and battery storage to your home.
We will be doing a series of blog posts to share the incentives available from the IRA as they become available.
Energy Efficiency Incentives
Starting 2023, households can get tax credits for energy efficiency improvements such as buying certain appliances and replacing windows. You can claim up to $1,200 a year or 30% of the total cost of these improvements on your taxes. Heat pump water heater and heat pump HVAC projects are also eligible for an annual $2,000 tax credit and do not count toward this $1,200 price cap.
| Item | Tax Credit |
|---|---|
| Energy efficient upgrades: • Insulation and air sealing • New windows and doors | 30% of project costs, capped at: • Insulation and air sealing: $1,200 • Exterior doors: $250 per door, $500 total • Windows: $600 • Energy audits: $150 |
| Heat pump water heater and heat pump HVAC | 30% of project costs, capped at $2,000 |
In the future, this legislation will also provide point-of-sale rebates to those in lower- and middle-income households to make energy efficiency improvements, upgrade their electrical panel and wiring, and replace old appliances, similar to our new Energy Efficiency program. By switching to efficient electric appliances, you can save on energy bills and have cleaner indoor air quality since you aren’t using gas.
Today’s electric appliances are 3-5 times more efficient than their gas counterparts. That means you are not only removing harmful gas emissions from your home by powering your appliances with clean electricity from us, but you are also saving money by using less energy!
An example of these energy efficient appliances are heat pump appliances such as water heaters, HVAC systems, and dryers. These pull in heat from the surrounding air to more efficiently heat up water and air your home. In the summer, the heat pump HVAC system uses a refrigerant to pull the hot air out of your home to cool it off.
Induction cooktops are another energy-efficient electric appliance. Induction uses magnetic coils to heat up food directly through the cookware. This means faster and more precise heating, keeping your kitchen cooler with no excess heat, no harmful gas emissions, and they are easy to clean! Electric stoves also qualify for the rebate.
Rewiring America has put together a tool to find out how much money you can get from each IRA incentive. The tool can combine incentives to calculate your future savings.
In addition to making things more affordable for families, the IRA also provides tax incentives for entities like SJCE so that investing in wind, solar, and energy storage becomes even more cost-effective. As residents electrify at home and on the road and SJCE builds more renewable resources, we’ll make great strides in achieving a cleaner and healthier future together.
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