To: Participating Contractors Regarding Programs: Residential Financing Program Summary: Change in process for OBR last deed of record searches Contact:residential.financing@nyserda.ny.gov
NYSERDA is changing the process when we request deeds due to the high number of On-Bill Recovery (OBR) loan applications for which a proforma is never submitted or the project does not pass the OBR cost effectiveness criteria. Effective immediately, EFS Slipstream will request deeds from the title company after the proforma has been approved rather than at the time of application. After the deed is received (about 5 days) the file will move forward to the QA stage and loan documents will be issued.
To: REA Contractors Regarding Programs: REA Summary: NYHEP Customer Creation Contact:homeaudits@nyserda.ny.gov
Updates have been made in NYHEP v3.0 to streamline the customer creation process. Drop-down options have been adjusted and additional values from the Customer page will now migrate to the Account and Premise pages. All updates can be reviewed in the REA section of Knowledge Base.
To: EmPower+ Contractors Regarding Programs: EmPower+ Summary: Contractors must provide a copy of the Home Energy Assessment to customers Contact:Please reach out to contractor support at 1-800-284-9069
The EmPower+ program has been receiving many customer complaints about customers not receiving copies of their home energy assessment. Starting on February 13, 2024, CLEAResult will verify that the home energy assessment report was generated in NYHEP as part of final project review. If the report is not present, the project will be pushed back to the contractor to generate the report and provide it to the customer. After the report has been provided to the customer, the contractor can resubmit the project.
Section 5.17 of the Program Manual specifies “The participating contractor shall provide Program participants with a finalized home energy assessment report within 14 calendar days of site visit. The report shall be generated from Program-approved software and include a detailed workscope proposal that identifies measures and pricing for improving the energy efficiency, comfort and safety of the home. The report shall include all energy efficiency, comfort, health and safety opportunities that exist in the home regardless of type of service(s) the participating contractor offers (i.e., a participating contractor with heating certification needs to identify applicable envelope issues in the report) while adhering to the policies and procedures.”
Moving forward, quality assurance inspections will also include an inquiry with customers to see if home energy assessment reports were provided. Initially, scores will not be diminished if a home energy assessment report was not provided to the customer; however, the contractor will be notified to send a copy of the home energy assessment report to the customer. If it is determined that a contractor is not providing their customers with a home energy assessment on a regular basis, CLEAResult Quality Control will work with the contractor to help them remediate this.
In addition to being a Program requirement, upcoming funding from the Inflation Reduction Act will make home energy assessment reports a requirement, where NYSERDA may need to show proof the home energy assessment report was delivered to the customer.
If there are any questions on this, please reach out to contractor support at 1-800-284-9069.
On January 25, an issue prevented EmPower+ contractor invoice payments from being dispersed. This issue has been resolved. ACH payments were processed overnight on February 5 and should be available within your banks typical processing time. Paper checks will be processed in the next check run on February 14.