Update to Accelerated Capital Allowance for Energy Efficient Equipment and Triple E Register

Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) have just completed the following improvements to the Triple E programme. The following technologies have been added to the Triple E product register: Heat Pumps, Solar Thermal and Inverters.

SEAI have also revised the following criteria to allow products to be submitted under the Microgen programme: Wind Turbine Systems, Photovoltaic Systems and Co-generation.

Unfortunately in this recent update they did not include hydro. Hopefully we will see this added in the next update!

Products can now be submitted for consideration under the new technology headings. Equipment suppliers and manufacturers who want to submit eligible equipment to the ACA can do so through the online process.  The next submission round will close Friday 19th August 5.00pm

Overview of Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA):

The ACA is a tax incentive for companies paying corporation tax and aims to encourage investment in energy efficient equipment. The ACA offers an attractive incentive whereby it allows companies to write off 100% of the purchase value of qualifying energy efficient equipment against their profit in the year of purchase.

This  incentive relates to the provision of certain energy-efficient equipment for use in a company’s trade  and the equipment must be included in the list of energy-efficient equipment approved by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in order to qualify under the scheme.

The energy-efficient equipment must be new. It must meet certain energy-efficient criteria and must fall within one of the  10 different equipment categories and 52 associated technologies.

A company is required to incur a minimum amount of expenditure on providing the equipment and this varies with the particular category to which the product belongs.

There is no requirement to obtain approval for expenditure on the energy-efficient equipment.

The normal self-assessment provisions apply. Once a company meets all of the required conditions, it can claim the allowance for the accounting period in which the equipment was first provided and used for the trade provided that the equipment is included on the published list at some stage during that accounting period. The allowance should be claimed on the company’s return of income (form CT1) and should be included along with any other wear and tear allowances for machinery and plant. A dedicated entry for this allowance is included in the CT1 return under the heading “Trading Results”.

Overview of the ACA equipment categories and eligibility criteria:

* Expenditure within each equipment category must, at the end of the accounting period, be equal to or exceed minimum expenditure amounts relevant for each category. Minimum expenditure can be over a range of projects, procurements etc as it only relates to overall company expenditure on BEMS technologies in the accounting period.

SEAI update the  Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA) criteria on a regular basis.