Service
Incentives and Grants
Federal, state, and utility incentives that fund the projects you would do anyway.
At a glance
- Typical efficiency project incentive stack
- 25 to 60%
- Average grant cycle
- 60 to 180 days
- Federal tax credit eligibility
- IRA-extended through 2032
Energy efficiency projects, electrification projects, demand response enrollment, solar installations, and storage installations are eligible for a stacked set of incentives at the federal, state, and utility level. Many programs are competitive with deadlines. Many are first-come, first-served and exhaust mid-cycle. We map your project pipeline against every available incentive, prioritize by funding stack and award probability, and handle the application paperwork.
- Federal tax credits including 179D, 48E investment credit, and IRA bonus credits
- State utility commission programs across Maryland, DC, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey
- Utility-administered EmPOWER, EnergyWise, and equivalent rebates
- Demand response capacity payments tracked separately under Demand Management
- Green tariff and renewable rider optimization
What we find
The specific patterns this discipline catches
- 01
Federal grant programs with active windows applicable to your project type
- 02
State and utility rebate programs not yet enrolled
- 03
Bonus credit eligibility for IRA-era projects in qualifying communities
- 04
Green rider opt-outs where the rider is not required and the cost is voluntary
How this engagement runs
From first bill to documented savings
We catalog your active and planned energy projects, your operating footprint, and any qualifying community designations. We cross-reference against the current incentive landscape and produce a stacked funding plan: federal credits and grants on top of state programs on top of utility rebates. For each program, we handle the eligibility documentation, application submission, and post-award compliance. We do not earn a contingency on incentives we did not identify before you started; everything is documented up front.
Background reading
Additional context on this topic
External resource. Linked for additional context on the topic; not produced by Developments CS.
In depth
Common questions, answered
What is Section 179D and who qualifies?
Section 179D is the federal tax deduction for energy-efficient commercial building improvements. Originally enacted in 2005 and expanded under the Inflation Reduction Act, the deduction applies to lighting, HVAC, and building envelope upgrades that meet defined efficiency targets relative to ASHRAE 90.1. Eligible amounts run from one dollar per square foot at a fifteen percent savings up to five dollars per square foot at a fifty percent savings, with the higher tiers requiring prevailing wage and apprenticeship compliance. Building owners qualify directly; for public buildings, the deduction can be allocated to the design firm. We model the projected savings, coordinate the third-party engineer certification, and document the prevailing wage compliance.
What is EmPOWER Maryland?
EmPOWER Maryland is the statewide energy efficiency program administered through the four largest electric and gas utilities. It funds rebates and incentive payments for qualifying efficiency measures across commercial, industrial, multifamily, and residential customer classes. Eligible measures include lighting retrofits, HVAC upgrades, controls and building automation systems, refrigeration upgrades, motors and drives, custom measures with engineering-calculated savings, and demand response enrollment. Funding cycles run annually with measure-specific budgets that exhaust as enrollment grows. Equivalent programs exist in PEPCO and Delmarva territory; we track every active program window and submit ahead of the budget exhaustion curve where required.
What is the Inflation Reduction Act bonus credit?
The IRA includes a bonus credit structure that increases the federal Investment Tax Credit and Production Tax Credit for projects that meet defined criteria. The base ITC is six percent. The full thirty percent applies to projects under one megawatt or projects meeting prevailing wage and apprenticeship rules. An additional ten percent bonus applies for domestic content compliance. Another ten percent bonus applies for projects sited in defined energy communities, including former coal communities, brownfield sites, and qualifying low-income census tracts. Stacked, an eligible project can claim up to fifty percent of qualifying cost as a federal tax credit. We test eligibility for every bonus tier and document the compliance trail.
Related services
Often deployed alongside
Send us a bill. We will tell you what we see.
Fifteen minutes with one of your invoices is usually enough to see whether there is meaningful savings on the table.