Dear LightingTaxDeduction.org,
I am working on determining an answer regarding a concern a customer has about an EPAct 2005 opportunity in their facility … If a customer has applied for and received the CBTD for the installation and upgrade of their interior lighting system, but did not maximize the CBTD (i.e., the project cost was less than $0.60/sq. ft.), can the customer—if they installed control technology (motion/ambient sensors), which would further reduce the building's energy consumption—claim additional EPAct 2005 funding?
Answer: It sounds like what you are saying is a building owner upgrades, claims the CBTD, then later on, wants to upgrade again and either 1) claim what’s left of the full CBTD not previously claimed, or 2) claim a new CBTD based on the new equipment added. It’s a good question.
Our interpretation is #1 would not be possible. An upgrade is eligible for the Deduction for the year it is placed in service. So if a CBTD was already claimed, that year has come and gone and with it any further eligibility for the new lighting that was installed.
Our interpretation is that #2 might be possible, however. It’s definitely possible if you are upgrading another part of a building that has already gotten the CBTD for a different part of the building. But if you are upgrading the exact same space, but adding occupancy sensors, there would be some real challenges.
The CBTD would be limited to the installed cost of the sensors only, you would have to use the Partial Systems rules (requiring building energy modeling) instead of the Interim Lighting Rule and you would have to reduce the total building energy cost by 16-2/3% using just the occupancy sensors! To make things worse, the baseline building for the energy analysis would be a building that is compliant with ASHRAE/IESNA 90.1-2001, which already requires automatic shutoff. So #2 could be technically possible, but not worth trying.
