The Sponsors of Mass Save® have just announced an expansion of the Passive House Incentive Program to include all multi-family buildings of five or more units. Previously, only multi-family buildings that were four or more stories were eligible. Now, all multi-families regardless of the number of stories will qualify, as long as they still have at least five total units.
This program, the first state program to offer a comprehensive multi-family Passive House incentive, has been a huge success so far, with numerous projects enrolling and receiving funds for feasibility studies on top of what they may receive when they finish construction. This expansion will build upon this early success and encourage a new range of projects to go Passive.
According to Mass Save, the incentives are available to projects that enroll during the early stages of design, prior to reaching 100% Schematic Design. Eligible participants are now all multi-family projects with five or more units that are pursuing either PHI or PHIUS certification and agree to monitor and provide the Sponsors with whole-building gas and electric consumption as well as on-site generation production. A Passive House consultant, certified through either PHI or PHIUS, must be hired to conduct a feasibility study and to serve as consultant to the project team throughout the design and certification process.
For all projects, the incentive provides over $3,000/unit by covering 100% of feasibility study costs up to $5,000, pre-certification up to $500/unit, certification up to $2,500/unit, and net performance bonus opportunities; modeling incentives cover 75% of the cost of up to $500 per unit and a total cap of $20,000 per building. This is a change from the original modeling incentive.
Projects are only eligible to receive post-construction incentives after achieving pre-certification. If pre-certification is not achieved, the project is eligible to receive the standard Mass Save Residential New Construction incentives.
For more information or how to enroll or on the details of the program, visit MassSave.com/PassiveHouse or contact multifhr@icf.com. More info from PHMA is here.