Next Round of ‘Clean Heat’ Incentives this Month

Clean energy federal tax credits going soon - apply for state aid before that's gone too

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Eighteen months after it was first launched by policymakers, the first phase of Rhode Island’s first heat pump incentive program is over.

State officials launched Clean Heat Rhode Island in September 2023, using $25 million from the state’s share of federal pandemic relief funds to provide cash incentives for homeowners and businesses to install high-efficiency heat pumps to handle heating and cooling for homes and buildings.

Abode Energy Management, the Massachusetts-based firm selected to run the program, announced March 3 it would cease accepting new applications from the program, stating “due to the success of the program, we have allocated nearly all our existing funds and are not currently accepting new applications.”

The company had already exhausted its total funding for market-rate residential incentives and closed applications for non-income eligible homeowners in mid-January.

A spokesperson from the state Office of Energy Resources (OER) declined to comment on the end of the program, pending its relaunch later this month.

So where did the money and rebates go? Complete data isn’t available for the entire program yet, in part by design. Funds were completely allocated by March, but Abode Energy wouldn’t actually cut a check for rebates until the installation was completed on any home or business, leading to a large lag in data.

Abode Energy also stopped updating its program dashboard back in February, but the data currently displayed accounts for almost three-quarters of the program’s entire spending limits, around $18.3 million.

By February of this year, Clean Heat Rhode Island issued 3,903 individual rebates to residential homeowners, spending a total of $10.1 million.

In the state’s commercial silo, the program issued 181 rebates to businesses, spending around $3.7 million on heat pump incentives.

The program issued another 257 rebates in its income-eligible silo, spending just under $4.4 million. These rebates were more generous than the standard rebate in the residential category.

State officials pledged 40% of program funds to frontline communities, and low-income residents who met the qualifications for the program could have the complete cost of a heat pump and installation covered by Clean Heat Rhode Island. It was a promise the state struggled to keep as the program entered its final months late last year; an ecoRI News analysis showed many of the rebates were cashed by homeowners in some of the state’s wealthiest communities.

Meanwhile, officials from Abode Energy and OER are already gearing up for the next round of Clean Heat Rhode Island funding. The program’s website notes new incentives available now. 

Abode Energy held two workshops in July for heat pump installers seeking to join the state’s official installer network.

The program has also secured a new source of state funds, netting an allocation from Rhode Island’s share of Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auction proceeds. The cap-and-trade program requires the biggest polluters in the 11 participating states to buy emission allowances, with proceeds from the program given to states for use on green and renewable energy projects.

In May, OER chose to allocate $3.3 million of Rhode Island’s proceeds from the March RGGI auction to Clean Heat Rhode Island, the Home Energy Appliance Rebate, and other energy-efficiency programs.

Last month, the agency announced its intention to award $2.2 million to Clean Heat Rhode Island and other energy efficiency programs, and another $717,320 for a pilot program on window heat pumps for low-income multi-unit apartment buildings. The final allocation decision will be made in August.