USGBC-LI hosts seminar on incentives for green building

The Long Island chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council hosted a special event to share the financial benefits of green building projects with interested attendees. To discuss these incentives, USGBC-LI invited representatives from the Long Island Power Authority, National Grid, and Energy Tax Savers and drew an audience of between 30 and 35 architects, engineers, facilities managers, HVAC contractors, and others interested in green buildings. From LIPA, the manager of commercial programs clean energy initiative, Randy Spitzer, detailed the incentives available from his company for utilizing high efficiency products for both commercial and residential installations. Spitzer outlined LIPA's prescriptive rebate program, the custom program and the RECAP program. Gary Krieger and Judy Torres from National Grid outlined the commercial program for gas customers and spoke about National Grid as a new player on Long Island and the positive impact they expect to have on the local environment. Krieger, the senior program manager for commercial energy efficiency, described the various types of audit and studies available for commercial facilities as well as prescriptive and custom rebates. Torres, the senior program manager for residential programs, also described various incentives available for contractors and homeowners who choose high efficiency gas products, including home energy assessments, online energy analysis and cash rebates. Finally, Charles Goulding from Energy Tax Savers, Inc. described the Energy Policy Act (called EPAct), and its financial implications for building owners as well as contractors. Goulding provided sample calculations to demonstrate the significance that EPAct can have on a particular project and/or facility, and also spoke about a proprietary product, Q-Pure that provides repair and replacement expensing opportunities when upgrading to high efficiency HVAC and roofing. An extensive question-and-answer period followed the presentations. According to Rob Bier, the co-chair of the green incentives committee at USGBC-LI, the event guests "felt there was great value and most were not aware of the majority of the incentives and programs that were discussed." He said the attendees requested future seminars, a request that USGBC-LI plans to fulfill in the coming months.