Residential Energy-Tax-Credit Eligibility: A Case Study for the Heat-Pump Water Heater

摘要

Described are the methodology and results of an analysis to determine the eligibility of an energy-efficient item for the residential energy-tax credit. Although energy credits are granted only on a national basis, an attempt to determine the tax-credit eligibility for an item such as the heat-pump water heater (HPWH) analyzing national data is inappropriate. The tax-credit eligibility of the HPWH is evaluated for the ten federal regions to take into consideration the regional differences of: (1) HPWH annual efficiency, (2) existing water heater stocks by fuel type, (3) electricity, fuel oil, and natural-gas price variations, and (4) electric-utility oil and gas use for electricity generation. A computer model of consumer choice of HPWH selection as well as a computer code evaluating the economics of tax-credit eligibility on a regional basis were developed as analytical tools for this study. The analysis in this report demonstrates that the HPWH meets an important criteria for eligibility by the Treasury Department for an energy tax credit (nationally, the estimated dollar value of savings of oil and gas over the lifetime of those HPWH's sold during 1981 to 1985 due to the tax credit exceeds the revenue loss to the treasury). A natural-gas price-deregulation scenario is one of two fuel scenarios that are evaluated using the equipment choice and tax-credit models. These two cases show the amount of oil and gas saved by additional HPWH units sold (due to the tax credit during 1981 to 1985) range from 13.9 to 23.1 million barrels of oil equivalent over the lifetime of the equipment.