Duke North Carolina Rebate Program Logic

This article is intended to explain how Duke Energy’s Residential New Construction Program rebates are calculated in Ekotrope (available to projects in the Duke Energy Progress territories in NC and SC).  If, after reading this, anything remains unclear, please let us know by emailing us at support@ekotrope.com and describing what is unclear.

General

In general, a home must qualify for the program by first meeting North Carolina's HERO code.  If the home qualifies, then it will receive a rebate of $0.90 for each projected electric kWh saved relative to the Duke North Carolina 2017 Reference Home plus any deemed savings described below.  There are also some amendments described below which affect both HERO compliance and rebate amounts.  A summary of the Duke North Carolina 2017 Reference Home for a given house and a Fuel Summary Comparison to that Reference Home are both available as reports in Ekotrope.

Amendments

The below amendments are entirely handled by Ekotrope, so the Rater does not need to run any additional analysis.  This list is purely informational.

1. If a home does not meet the air sealing testing requirement of North Carolina HERO (4 ACH50 or 0.24 CFM/sq. ft. shell area), but passes the visual air sealing inspection and meets the rest of the requirements of the HERO code (using default of 7 ACH50 for the rated home), then the home will receive a total rebate of $750.  This does not apply to multi-family units less than 700 sq. ft.
2. For the HERO Performance calculation, mechanical ventilation will be the same in the reference home as the proposed home except any energy recovery will be set to zero and the electric consumption of the ventilation will be as defined in the code.

Deemed Savings

1. If the clothes washer has a Labeled Energy Rating of less than or equal to 96 kWh, the home will receive a deemed savings of 397 kWh.  Clothes washers labeled as ENERGY STAR may be modeled at 96 kWh (LER) using the Ekotrope ENERGY STAR pre-sets.
2. If the home has a conditioned crawl space, it will receive a deemed savings of 650 kWh.
3. For homes submitted August 1st, 2019 or later: homes will receive deemed savings of 83 kWh for each smart thermostat installed for a maximum of 3 thermostats per home.