[1] ASHRAE 90.1-2004: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers: Energy Efficient Design of New Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.

State Renewable Energy Incentives
The 2005 California Energy Code, contained new roofing requirements in Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations, that went into effect in October of 2005. The mandated Title 24 standard was the first of the California standards to identify roofing membranes as a factor in saving energy besides the insulation normally required in a roof assembly. For the first time, the standard identified the requirement for the use of “Cool Roofs”, i.e. a roof containing a cover with thermal reflectance and emittance values greater than or equal to 0.75, when tested in accordance with the CRRC-1[1] and established the procedures for certifying and implementing the roofing product. To encourage the use of “Cool Roofs”, many states and utility companies offer rebate programs and other financial incentives to persuade owners to install “cool roofing” products on their buildings. The voluntary US EPA/DOE Energy Star Program[2] has identified Reflective Roofing Products as a means of reducing a building’s cooling energy costs.

Several states have adopted an energy policy which awards points in the form of tax credits and rebates to building owners that offset their energy use by using cool or reflective roofs. These states include Arizona, California as mandated by Title 24 of the 2005 California Energy Code, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Idaho (www.coolroofs.org/codes_and_programs.html).

To help offset the costs for implementing energy efficient technologies to new and existing buildings; there are a number of federal and state rebates, grants, loans, and incentives available. A comprehensive source of information for the available incentive programs for renewable energy, is the DSIRE database[3], an ongoing project of the IREC[4], funded by the U.S Department of Energy and managed by the North Carolina Solar Center.