do you mean a powered attic ventilator (pav) a fan controlled by a tstat & installed in the decking of the roof to pull hot air out of attic? what combination of ventilation do you have? any soffit vents to allow cool air to enter attic? gable end venting? soffit and ridge vents? soffit and pav's? answer depends on these factors. if you have soffit and pav..replace pav with passive ventilators. pav's pull conditioned air from inside living space to cool attic. or do you have a whole house fan that is in the ceiling of the house and pulls house air thru open windows & into attic? hard to tell from your post. best of luck.

An attic fan, as the name implies, is designed to cool the attic. Their primary advantage is keeping the attic cooler thereby extending the life of the shingles and they do keep the house itself a little cooler. They do need to be sized and positioned correctly for maximum effectiveness and depending on the size and configuration of your attic, you may need more than one fan. There are some that say they are a waste of money because they create only localized cooling (air takes the path of least resistance) and/or if the attic is vented properly, no additional cooling is necessary. A whole house fan works best in climates or seasons where there are warm days and cool nights. They are placed in a central location (on the second floor if applicable). Basically you open the windows and flip on the fan, which pulls cool air in and pushes hot air into the attic. Again they need to be sized correctly and your attic needs to be vented properly to give the air some place to go. They can eliminate the need for air conditioning, which is why your utility is giving a rebate. Since you are moving a lot of air, they can be noisy.

Continuos run ridgeventing coupled with continous soffit/eave venting with radiant barrier stapled to the underside of the rafters of the trusses or framed rafters, 3" from the eave venting, continuing up to the ridgeventing is a good way to keep your attic cooler in the summer. The heat from the roof is trapped between the roof sheathing and the radiant barrier with the hot air being pushed up and out the ridgeventing by way of the soffit/eave venting. Radiant barrier rolls of 50" x 1000' are relatively inexpensive and is something you can easily d.i.y. Here's a link where we got ours. He leaves his phone # on his website for a reason. I've had many questions concerning our build and the use of radiant for heat retention, and Mr. Ed Sumpolec was extremely helpful. Here is a link that might be useful: radiant barrier

You'll need to look at the manual for the A/C to see what recovery mode means. From the description, I'm guessing (only guessing) that this may mean the cooling coils ice up and it is pausing to allow the ice to melt (turns the compressor off and still runs the fans?). But the suggestion to get someone in to look at it and make recommendations sounds the best.