by Sabine Rogers
On Thursday, July 27th, the Department of Energy (DOE) released guidelines for the Inflation Reduction Act Home Energy Rebate Programs—also known as the Home Owner Managing Energy Savings (HOMES) and High-Efficiency Electrification Homes Rebates (HEEHR) programs.
The 100-page Program Requirements and Application Instructions document is available here and DOE’s separate 19-page Home Energy Rebates Administrative and Legal Requirements Document (ALRD) is available here. In addition, DOE released several other companion resources:
- A 34-page Data and Tools Requirements Guide.
- A 9-page Utility Data Access Guidelines document.
- Additional application documents for states (viewable here).
These series of documents lay out critical information about how state energy offices will be required to develop and operate their programs, with many crucial details regarding the measured savings approach for the HOMES Rebates.
The guidelines come after the Flex Coalition submitted comments to DOE in March with recommendations and best practices in support of the HOMES Rebate Program measured savings approach as an opportunity to advance data-driven demand flexibility.
The intent of the measured savings approach is to provide flexibility for the market to deploy different energy-saving and greenhouse gas-reduction strategies and encourage innovation in pursuit of the highest energy-savings impact measures. The measured path will support market-based solutions to energy savings and competition that will help more homeowners access quality energy-saving upgrades. In fact, in the guidelines, DOE identifies innovation and market transformation as key overarching goals of the programs.
States will have until August 16, 2024, to declare whether they will apply for funds and until January 31, 2025, to complete their applications. States must expend the funds by September 2031.
Join the Flex Coalition Webinar on IRA HOMES Program Guidelines on Wednesday, August 9th for a deep dive into the program guidelines, next steps, and what it means for the future of energy efficiency and demand flexibility.