February 22nd, 2024 — Every year utilities, states, and municipalities spend billions of dollars promoting energy upgrades like energy efficiency and electrification, with the goal of realizing the multifaceted benefits they can provide. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the US federal government is set to add even more money to this incentive pool.
However, accessing and distributing these incentives is time consuming, confusing, and costly for customers, contractors, and the incentive providers themselves. Complex eligibility requirements are buried in program documentation. Overlapping and adjacent jurisdictions have differing rules and incentives. Incentive applications can take months to approve and fulfill, with any errors on the application further extending the timeline. Taken together, these challenges lead to suboptimal and inequitable outcomes and slow progress towards decarbonization.
Rock Rabbit’s integrated platform, and multi-sided app with contractor and homeowner experiences, make rebate identification and management easy for contractors and homeowners, while also helping incentive providers improve their programs’ equity outcomes and reduce program costs. Using Rock Rabbit, contractors can confidently include incentives in initial quotes, easily ensure they meet all requirements during installation, and seamlessly submit rebate applications to multiple incentive providers without duplicative paperwork. Incentive providers using Rock Rabbit can more accurately and cost effectively approve rebates while also making their incentives more accessible to historically underserved populations.
Billions of dollars in incentives are saving energy, promoting electrification, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
The US and Canada have a long history of utilities successfully using incentives to promote energy efficient equipment adoption. In recent years, some utilities and government agencies have also begun using similar incentives to promote beneficial electrification, which reduces emissions and costs, and makes improvements for customers.
For example, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy’s 2023 Utility Energy Efficiency Scorecard notes that utilities invested over $7.6B in 2021 related to energy efficiency programs, and that the largest 53 saved over 18.7 terawatt hours through their energy efficiency efforts.
With the passage of the IRA, the federal government will add substantial capital to efforts to support building decarbonization. For example, the IRA will provide a total of $9B in residential electrification rebates alone, in addition to tax credits of up to 30% for residential projects.
Incentives need to be distributed more cost effectively and equitably
Historically, incentive programs have featured substantial overhead costs for both contractors and incentive providers, and the incentives themselves have not been distributed equitably across customers.
For example, the administrative burden to apply for rebates can often be so high for contractors that they often must bring on full-time staff just to manage the process. Smaller contractors who cannot afford to do so instead forgo incentive programs entirely.
From the incentive provider perspective, a 2019 E Source analysis of data in regulatory filings showed that utilities spent over 36% of program budgets on administration and program delivery. Reducing these costs allows more funds to flow to rebates, customer education, and evaluation.
Moreover, in a literature review for their 2023 report Toward More Equitable Energy Efficiency Programs for Underserved Households, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy found that those receiving home energy upgrade incentives consistently skewed far more urban, white, college-educated, and wealthy compared to the general population.
Rock Rabbit streamlines the incentive process for contractors and incentive providers, reducing costs and improving equity
For residential contractors, Rock Rabbit’s app pre-qualifies potential projects for all available incentives, provides step-by-step instructions for the installer to ensure all necessary data is captured at the site, and offers the ability to apply for all relevant incentives with just a few clicks. Its uniquely scalable and up-to-date database combined with its sophisticated interface let contractors confidently include incentives from overlapping jurisdictions in their project proposals.
For incentive providers, Rock Rabbit’s platform can facilitate point-of-sale incentives for a wide range of energy upgrades, reduce the barriers to entry for new and smaller trade allies, lower costs and improve the velocity of application approvals, and quickly convey program information in a number of different languages.
Rock Rabbit’s product roadmap includes a number of enhancements to further smooth out the home energy incentive process. In the future, they may also expand to serve additional incentive types such as those for small businesses, commercial customers, and industrial customers.
Powerhouse Ventures is proud to lead Rock Rabbit’s $3.1M seed round, with additional participation from Better Ventures, MUUS, and a number of strategic individuals. We look forward to working with CEO Aimee Bailey, CTO Riyad Muradov, and the entire Rock Rabbit team as they promote home energy efficiency and decarbonization.
Special thanks to Marie Thompson, Gabe Cuadra, and Jessica Makolin.
To read more about our work at Powerhouse and Powerhouse Ventures, visit our Insights page.