Texas State Energy Conservation Office on the program design and launch of the Homes and here programs. Again, thank you for joining. I'm going to start with a couple of housekeeping items
Please note, all lines are muted. If you have any questions or comments, please go down to the Q&A box at the bottom of your Zoom screen. There you can enter questions and comments for our team
We will be monitoring the Q&A box throughout the presentation today and may answer some of those questions in the Q&A box. We will also be fielding some questions at the end of today's presentation verbally
Please note that this presentation is being recorded. We ask that you do not record this presentation. A copy of the recording will be available on the Seco website, as well as
a PDF of today's presentation, so you can check back to the CEQA website for more information. And we encourage you to do that anyway as SEQA will be continuing to post updated, frequently asked questions and other information
Around the progress of the Homes and here programs. Notetakers, AI note takers and chat bots are also asked not to join today. So if we see those, we may be removing them from today's attendance
Also note, information shared verbally today in response to questions during the webinar may not be 100% accurate, complete or up to date. Verbal responses should not be considered as official guidance. And as noted earlier, please consult our website for the most accurate and up-to-date information.
So again, please continue to check the Seco website for more information and a recording of this presentation as well as a copy of today's slides.
And I am going to hand us over to LaShawn Smith from the State Energy Conservation Office for a few brief words before we get into today's agenda.
All right, thanks Katie. Hello everyone and good evening and welcome. I am LaShawn Smith, and I am a program manager with the rebates program with the State Energy Conservation Office
And on behalf of SECO and the Texas State Comptroller's Office of Public Accounts, we'd like to welcome you and thank you for joining us for this informational session of the upcoming Homes and Hare Rebate Programs.
So here in Texas, and these programs are funded through the Inflation Reduction Act and supported by the US Department of Energy
And they will help Texans reduce energy costs and make practical upgrades that improve comfort and efficiency.
This initiative is about delivering real savings to households across our state while also supporting local contractors and strengthening our communities.
Today's session will give you a preview of what's coming and how you can begin preparing ahead of launch. We're proud to partner with experienced organizations like Aptum and Innova Energy Group, who will walk you through the program details and what to expect next.
With that, I'll turn it back over to our partners. Thank you for being here.
Thank you so much, LaShawn.
So here's a brief look at today's agenda and what you can expect from this webinar. Kurt Stogdale from Aptum is going to start with an overview of the Homes in Here rebate programs. And then we'll hand it over to Charles Newborn, also from Aptum, to talk through the planning process
I will go through opportunities to gather your input and how you can provide feedback and ask questions as we go through the planning process period. And then at the end of today's discussion, we will have some time for questions and answers.
Again, please make sure that you are putting your Q&A in the Q&A box at the bottom of your Zoom screen. And with that, I am going to hand it over to Kurt for an overview of the programs.
Thank you, Katie. Good evening, everybody. I'm Kurt Stogbill. I'm a program director, State Program Director for Homes for Texas for Aptum. Aptum is an environmental services and energy services company on the energy services side, we provide statewide energy efficiency programs
for Wisconsin and Louisiana, and then we also partner with other partners in states doing homes in Hear work, including for North Carolina, Wisconsin
Minnesota, Nevada, as well as Texas. So it's a pleasure to be here. Next slide, please.
So, as Lashawn talked about, this funding was initiated through Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress authorized 8.8 billion across all the states
through the U.S. Department of Energy to carry out two different energy efficiency programs. One is called Homes, the other is called HERE. The acronym here is going to change a little bit, but the name is still going to stay the same as far as it will still be called HER
But to give you more program information here in a second, but the QR code to the right will take you directly to Seco's website, which can give you more information on the history of the IRA and these programs. It'll also provide you a place to go
for ongoing updates about what we're doing from a program perspective, and keep you… as well as opportunities to get involved, moving forward.
Next slide, please. Thank you.
So,
Texas almost near Texas was allocated the largest allocation of any state. Texas has nearly $690 million dollars that's going to be allocated through the Department of Energy across the two programs.
State Energy Conservation Office is the administrator, so they have the formal contract and administration responsibility through Department of Energy. Aptum will serve as their planning and implementation lead, so we'll actually be doing the planning and the implementation leading
leadership on this. We are currently in the planning phase for this, so we don't have programs fully designed yet, we don't have money available, so to that end, rebates are not available. Please do not proceed as if they are yet
Once we have program design and approval, then the programs will be released and revisits will become available.
So going into specific programs, the first one is homes. Homes provides for rebates for whole house energy savings upgrades. They have minimum requirements for both energy savings for
either of two approaches, one being modeled or measured. We haven't determined which of those approaches we'll use for this program yet, but the modeled approach utilizes a software package which looks at the current state of the house and then potential changes to it
And looks at the delta and derives a potential… a projected savings, and then that helps drive the
potential rebate levels as well. Some of the measures that are covered under homes include things like insulation, air sealing, HVAC systems, lighting, and appliances
As far as who's eligible, it's eligibility for all income levels. It also includes provisions for both single-family and multi-family buildings. So homeowners and renters, renters with owner's permission are all going to
Potentially eligible for this program. As far as rebate levels, they're based on a combination of energy savings levels and income levels
A given household can be eligible for up to $8,000 per household
Within the Homes program.
So the next programs here
And here looks specifically at rebates for specific certified electric appliances and ancillary upgrades. And that includes things like heat pump water heaters, electric stoves, insulation, air sealing, heat pump water coolers
As well as heat pump, or heat pump water heaters, as well as
clothes dryers. It also includes a provision for electric wiring and panel upgrades if a consumer has an additional appliance that
hooking up that has additional draw and needs a panel upgrade, or the wiring they have isn't safe, it allows a provision for that to be included as part of the funding.
As far as eligibility, this program is specifically designed for low to moderate income households, low income being defined as below 80% of the area median income and moderate income being defined as 80 to 150% of the AMI
Again, eligibility extends to both single family and multifamily buildings. And the same with owners and renters with owner's permission.
These rebate levels, again, are prescriptive and based on individual technologies, so there are limits by technology prescribed for each technology across all of those different measures, the maximum is $14,000 that an individual household could be eligible for
As far as the anticipated benefits, one of the biggest is going to be lower energy bills. You put in a more efficient appliance, you expect your energy bills to decrease.
Also should lead to enhanced comfort as you have a more efficient system, a better designed system, can lead to
operating at a narrower temperature range within your house can also lead to better humidity control, which can really do a lot to aid your comfort.
It also offers a lot of opportunities from a business perspective for contractors, suppliers, and manufacturers of the products that are going to be offered up and installed
They all get the additional boost of this funding to help support their operations and their businesses.
It also offers increased grid resiliency through the enhanced energy efficiency
Lower overall energy use
As a subsequent reduced demand, which is good for the grid as well. Again, all of this great information for Texas, great value for Texas, and we're really excited to be working with Seco to help offer this. As I talked about, we're just in the planning phases now for this
And to talk about those planning activities is Charles Newborn, who's a program director with Aptum, who's leading those efforts. Charles
Thank you, Kurt. Good evening, everyone. So I will run through kind of where we started, where we are now in terms of planning. The next slide is going to show our kind of timeline and key milestones. So the
State Seco submitted an application to DOE January 2025 in March of 2026, Aptum was hired as a program implementer, working closely with a number of partners, including colleagues from Innova that are presenting today
We are currently, as Kurt noted, in the planning phase. And so we plan to be in the planning phase for the next few months here, working through a number of elements that will allow us
to solidify our plan. A central element of our program design is making sure that we hear from the community. So community engagement will be one of our key strategic areas that we'll be involved in over the next
A couple of months until we kind of wrap up that planning phase and work toward submitting a set of plans or a blueprint to the Department of Energy for their review and approval
So our target is to do that by this fall. Once the Department of Energy has received our submission, they'll have a certain amount of time to review that and give us the green light to launch
So we'll be in that implementation phase for some time, either until the end of the program in September 2031 or until all funds have been expended
Thinking about a little more in detail, I would say, about our program activities, we are again in the planning phase. We'll be in the planning phase until fall. As I noted, community engagement, allowing for public input
will be our focus for this planning period. We will be working actively and in various ways with the community to distill insights, kind of synthesize, key takeaways, and infuse those takeaways into
The program design
Those program design elements that are gathered through our research and our engagement with stakeholders will be reflected in the final kind of deliverables, as I noted, that will be submitted to the Department of Energy
Who will review and approve those within a certain timeframe. We'll shift from that planning period upon approval by the Department of Energy into implementation where rebates will be available.
Excited to even talk and think about that. As Kurt noted, there are a number of great benefits for Texans as a result of these programs kind of going live. We're not there yet when we get there, we'll all be excited, and again, those rebates will
Kind of run from that implementation start until funds are expended or September 2031, whichever comes first.
A major focus for the implementation period is contractor engagement, recruitment, education, and training. So we will have a number of tactics that we're utilizing to ensure that contractors feel supported, that they
Certainly have
ways to leverage these programs to benefit their customer or stakeholder groups. So, a lot more to come on kind of how we will engage with contractors during the implementation period.
So, I've highlighted
That our program design strategy really centers on active stakeholder engagement, utilizing multiple pathways to connect with Texans, understand the perspective and pull those perspectives into
Our program design work. So those first two bullets really work together. They're happening in parallel, they're feeding each other, they're taking shape as we go through our engagement process with various stakeholder groups. We'll also be doing some research to ensure that
We account for potential synergies with existing programs that serve kind of similar objectives. We obviously want to embrace
existing infrastructures to explore those synergies, and we want to, if possible, allow the program to cover gaps, in the overall kind of Texas energy program landscape or ecosystem
The implementation blueprints again will be the result of the stakeholder engagement and program design efforts. Those are formal documents are part of an application that will be submitted to the Department of Energy for review
and approval
So talked a lot about stakeholder engagement. So some of the things that we are
Hoping to get out of that stakeholder engagement are kind of outlined here. These are a number of open questions that we've prepared as we
prepared a structure stakeholder engagement. There's a decent amount of flexibility in how the programs can be designed. Of course, the DOE guidelines give us kind of the framework, but within that framework
There are some things that we can do to ensure that the programs are ideally structured to serve Texans. So items that you see here, like the kind of assessment process and the energy savings calculation
There's room for some customization or structuring of that element, and we want to use, again, conversations and engagement with stakeholders to help answer those types of questions
We also want to think about things like consumer protection. How do we ensure that these are programs that are grounded in quality and have a really well-structured quality management approach
that also acknowledges the challenges
that contractors face doing this type of work. So again, we're hoping to
gather answers and insights in each of these categories and a number of other categories as we connect with Texans and learn kind of about the priorities and some of the thinking on these topic areas
So again, I've talked a lot about engagement. We want to outline at the highest level now our overall engagement approach. We'll go into more detail
So in just a bit on each of these
elements of our strategy that I'll run through these and tee that up for my colleague. You can see the boxes are different types of touchpoints, we'll call them, or types of engagement. We will be
Engaging in some in-person community events in addition to online sessions, like we're in today, talking to or sharing information about the program and hearing from potential program participants, contractors
And any number of other key stakeholder types. Their questions, their insights about the program. So we want to start the dialogue in an open setting and again, learn what you're interested in knowing more about
And hear from you about things that are important to prioritize in program design.
An advisory council is also something that we are
planning to stand up. This advisory council will focus on strategic
program considerations. They will support some of the planning and program design work and also kind of extend into the implementation phase. We'll talk more in detail about that, but that will be
a way that we have a systematic approach for continuing to gain insight from the
community on ways to optimize these programs. In the planning period and beyond.
Finally, or a few other touchpoints, working groups are something that we're expecting to use to
deal with kind of challenges or stickier elements of program design. So the working group will be a more longer term kind of engagement in the planning period
Where we're meeting with subject matter experts and picking their brain, more or less, on kind of broad topics that again will help us design the most effective program for Texans possible.
And lastly, topic meetings. These will be opportunities for us to do a deep dive with subject matter experts on a specific issue. Again, hopefully working to discover different elements of the issue
Even more ideally working to solution. And so our hope is that this set of tactics or in touch point types will allow us to better understand the needs of Texans and again, make sure
those insights from engagement make their way into our final program design.
There's a number of key stakeholder types listed below. Hopefully you see yourself in those stakeholder types. This is not a particularly comprehensive list, but I think it's there to emphasize that we want to hear from different folks, different groups
And again, learn how we can improve the program design so that it's optimally beneficial
With that, I will pass it over to my colleague, Katie Folk
Thank you so much, Charles. So I'm going to talk through all the different opportunities we are presenting for your input and input of other Texans, all folks around the state.
The first really major opportunity is community events. We will be hosting 11 throughout the state of Texas, starting toward the end of June and going through the second week of July. We'll be holding these in the evening for a couple of hours, so usually no earlier than 5 Pm
Usually starting between 5 and 6 PM
And these are open to the public. We're really looking for input from all types of folks, homeowners, multifamily, property owners, managers, utility folks, contractors, manufacturers, distributors. It's an opportunity to learn more about the Homes in Hear programs in person
Provide your feedback and your input. It's really important to us that we understand the different needs and, you know, priorities of folks throughout the entire state. We are dropping a few registration links
In the chat right now for our first three events, which will be in Austin, San Antonio, McAllen. We're hosting the majority of these at libraries and community centers where we hope folks can easily access those venues and have an opportunity to join us once again in person to provide
their input and ask the questions that you feel are relevant to yourself and your community. We are planning on also having a final virtual event toward the end of July, in case folks are unable to make it to any of these
Right now, the registration links that we are dropping in the chat are the three that are available. Please check the Seco website for registration links for all of the events. We're hoping to have those up in the next few days
And looking forward to hopefully seeing a number of you in person in Texas throughout the summer.
We also have an online comment form that is available right now. You can scan the QR code to get to that comment form, or again, find it through the Seco website. This is also open to the public and is also
dropped in the chat as well. If you have input, feedback, things you would like us to consider as we are going through the program design process
And you are unable to make it to one of the community events, we still would like to hear your voice and ensure that we are taking everything into consideration. So please submit your input into that form
Note, you will not receive a direct response from the program design team, but if we receive enough frequently asked questions, we will also add that to the FAQ on the website. So
Another great opportunity to have your voice heard and please utilize this online form whenever you'd like. It's available now
Charles mentioned topic meetings. We're going to do a few deep dive sessions into specific areas of importance for the design of the program. Again, we are looking for some really detailed information from folks and
You know are forming these groups with the hopes that subject matter experts within these areas are available to contribute their insights and their input and may also react to some of the thoughts that the program design team is having as they are going through this process.
Our first session will be for household engagement. So if you work for a community-based organization You work for a company that serves communities, multifamily, property managers or provide other services for households and homeowners
This may be a great opportunity for you to provide some input. Or if you've also marketed similar types of energy efficiency programs, consider joining our household engagement topic meeting
Multifamily will really be focusing on multifamily property owners, multifamily management companies.
So if you have experience in working with multifamily, have helped implement programs that address the needs of multifamily programs, please consider joining that topic meeting.
Contractor and workforce development, as Charles mentioned, is another important aspect of these programs, and we are holding a topic meeting specifically for that. So if you are a electrical, an HVAC contractor, you work in weatherization in the state of Texas
Or you work with an organization that works with contractors, please consider joining this group and providing your input as well. And then finally, we are doing a topic meeting on technology and market transformation. So if you're a manufacturer or distributor, you have insights on
Supply chain, you know, how we can maintain the interest in new technologies over time, please consider joining this topic meeting. Once again, we are dropping some of the links for registration to the topic meetings in the chat
And we are hoping to have these links also available on the SECO website very shortly. So again, please continue to check back the Seco website. We have a page specifically for opportunities for feedback where these meetings will be posted shortly
We are also developing a working group. We may develop a couple of these, but right now we're really focusing on utility engagement. So utilities offer similar programs throughout the state. And we want to understand
how these programs may intersect with homes and here's may also want to kind of understand the experiences of utility companies in serving households throughout the state of Texas. If you are a utility member who
works in similar type programs. You may be invited to be part of this working group. And the expectation is that this working group will meet at least 2 times for about an hour and a half each. And again, have more of a deep dive subject matter-centered conversation around utility programs
Charles also mentioned the advisory Council. So this is going to be a group comprised of subject matter experts from various
areas. So it could be multifamily contractors, distributors, utility folks. A number of different people to kind of create a rounded out group of individuals who we can work with over time
to receive feedback, to, you know, run ideas past them. This is going to be an application-based process.
So if you feel that you have the expertise and, you know, the experience in an area that could contribute to a long term engagement opportunity, please feel welcome to apply to this opportunity.
A link to the application is dropped in the chat, or you can also scan the QR code here. And again, this is a long-term opportunity, so we are hoping to host a few of these meetings during this planning phase as we start designing the programs
But also into the first year of the program being active. So it's important that you're interested and available to continue working with us through the advisory Council as part of that application
But again, if you feel like this is something that you can contribute to, please feel welcome to fill out this application.
So just in summary, these are the different groups that we're pulling together initially. And again, if you find yourself in a particular area of subject matter expertise that you feel that you can contribute, please consider either registering or applying to that group
You can follow the links in the chat, or please check back the SECO website and look at the opportunities for feedback page for additional information on how you can get engaged. And of course, our community events are available and open to everyone, as is the comment form online. So please feel welcome to use that at any time.
We're now going to address some questions and comments. I do think we've had some come in through the Q&A box, but you can feel welcome to continue to put your questions in that box as we are having this discussion.
We ask that you please keep those questions with regards to the program and the areas that we've discussed today. And we may not get to all questions today. We may not answer everything. So, you know, if you don't receive an answer to your question
We ask that you please visit the CECA website, look at the FAQ. And again, check back there often for updates on the program
And again, you can always use the the comment form as well.