A. Basic Program

1. Program Measures and Incentives

a. Prescriptive Measures

Overview
Prescriptive Measures allow customers to choose equipment from a pre-qualified list of energy-efficiency measures and receive a fixed incentive. This path is designed for customers who have projects that are beyond the design phase. These may include new construction, renovation, remodeling, and equipment replacement projects.

Eligibility and Incentives
Commercial and industrial customers of any size are eligible for measures found in the prescriptive measure lists. Prescriptive measures are those technologies where energy savings can be predicted with reasonable accuracy across all applications. These technologies include: lighting equipment and controls, unitary HVAC equipment, chillers, motors, and variable frequency drives.

A summary of the range of technologies and incentives is listed below. Full Eligible Measure and Incentive Tables, as well as technical and minimum requirements relating to specific prescriptive measures, are appended to this Program Guide.

b. Custom Measures

Overview
Custom Measures are designed to encourage measures that are innovative and more energy efficient than today's standards, and have not yet been adopted as a prescriptive technology.. This path allows customers to request an assessment of measures of their own choosing that are not on the prescriptive list. The Custom Measures option allows for a more comprehensive and creative consideration of projects that are more complex than the Prescriptive measures, but involve less than a whole building design.

Eligibility, Services, Requirements, and Incentives Custom measures are more complex projects that do not lend themselves, or have not yeat been adopted as, prescriptive treatment, and yet involve less than a comprehensive building design. Often the savings generated by these measures are site- and end-use specific, and thus a detailed analysis is required to qualify them for incentives. Custom Measures may include HVAC systems, refrigeration measures, and a variety of industrial process end-uses.

Project viability, eligibility, and incentives are assessed on a case-by-case basis and may be determined as part of a technical study, which details energy and demand savings and project costs. The study is conducted according to specified procedures and is subject to our review and approval. Consult the appendix of this document for a guide to elements needed for a technical study proposal. In other cases, custom measure applications may contain all of the information necessary for processing without the need for a formal technical study.

To be eligible, a proposed custom project must offer a minimum first-year energy savings of 75,000 kWh for electric projects or 1,500 therms for gas projects. This requirement may be waived by the Program Manager on a case-by-case basis if project savings are within 10% of these minimum requirements. Projects with both electric and gas savings may be considered for incentives if either of the minimum savings requirements are met. Multiple smaller applications may not be grouped to meet minimum savings requirements. 

The baseline standard practice against which energy savings for each proposal will be judged is to be determined on a case-by-case basis, using such resources as: current New Jersey baseline studies and other market research; the program experience of the Commercial/Industrial Market Manager; and experience of the New Jersey utilities or utility/public program experience from other comparable jurisdictions.

The established incentive cap will be the lesser of a set value of $.16/kWh and $1.60/therm based on estimated annual savings, 50% of the total installed project cost, or a buy down to a one year payback. In addition, all custom projects must have an IRR greater than or equal to 10%. The baseline for retrofit projects will be existing conditions. Custom measures for retrofit projects must exceed ASHRAE 90.1-2007 standards by at least 2% where specific standards exist. Where ASHRAE guidelines do not apply, measures will be required to exceed industry standards as determined by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), EPA's ENERGY STAR®, and/or others. New construction and complete "gut-rehab" projects will use ASHRAE 90.1-2007 as the baseline for estimating energy savings. For new construction and major gut/rehab projects, baseline measure costs will be determined on a case-by-case basis, using the Market Manager’s measure cost research, program experience, and technical judgment.

We reserve the right to limit funding on a per project or customer basis, based on the availability of funds and other program considerations.