I'd rather ignore this blog, but it's probably prescient

Suzanne Shelton, CEO of the Shelton Group wrote a thought provoking opinion piece on the immediate future prospects of the Home Performance field.  She states "In fact, the availability of more generous federal tax incentives has been a primary driver for the increase in energy efficient home improvement activity we’ve seen over the past year."

Since I haven't seen any excess of activity this year, I'm not sure what increase she's talking about though I suspect that the US as a whole has seen a noticeable uptick in Home Performance contracting in 2010.  But the part I dislike - only because it's a somewhat bitter taste - is that the forecast for 2011, which I and many other Home Performance Contractors hope will be substantially busier, is that on third of possible clients is lost this year because of the decrease in tax incentives.  As Shelton says, "Thus at a minimum, approximately one third of the population who made their home more energy efficient would likely not have acted or would not have purchased the more efficient unit if it weren't for the incentives offered."

Granted, California utilities have stepped up their rebate plans, rolling many of the individual existing rebates for insulation, high efficiency furnaces, etc. into the new Energy Upgrade California (EUC).  The requirements for a Contractor to get in to the EUC are set high enough to keep out the casual and untrained, but the program itself is fairly robust and is funded by everyone's utility bills so it's not going away for the next few years.  I've heard that cash rebates are available to qualified homeowners using qualified Home Performance Contractors up to $4000, though I haven't been able to get more than $3500 for a client so far.  And as it should be, the rebate amount is dependent on the tested and modeled percentage increase in energy efficiency of the home, so it's both science based and verified afterwards by both 3rd party Verifiers and by following the homeowner's utility bills for the next year or two.  That's a lot of what I like about the EUC: the building science, or home-as-a-system approach, helps us understand why certain efficiency measures are more important than others, the the verification system helps homeowners trust us as contractors.

The Shelton Group's Blog:     http://www.sheltongroupinc.com/blog/?p=2106

Energy Upgrade California:     http://energyupgradecalifornia.org/