Annette.. If you look at the old versions of the 5695, you'll see that the Qualified Energy Efficiency Improvements were combined with the Residential Energy Property Expenditures making it easy to understand that "YES" was the answer to the question 17a and so on.
Now, the form has been divided by the 2 sections making it difficult to answer 17a and so on because I do not have those specific improvements in that section and answering Yes or No would seem to imply I have them and that would be misleading.
However, it appears IRS instructions did at least mention that answering "NO" disqualifies you for the credit and you should not complete Section A....which means to me that each Section stands on its own and the credit will still be calculated in Section B. I think leaving Section A blank is the proper way. I tried it and it does print out the form with it section A blank, but simply not sure if it will get filed if I don't fill something in. The review process still will stop you at that worksheet to fill in something.
