Clean energy industry groups are cheering the last-minute inclusion of key tax incentive extensions and billions of dollars in research and development funds that found their way into the $2.4 trillion spending package and coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress on Monday night. (Whether the bill would be vetoed by President Donald Trump remained an open question as of Wednesday morning.)
But solar and wind power groups and energy storage advocates didn’t get all they’ve been asking for from Congress in the bill — and they’re seeking support for those additional policies from the incoming Biden-Harris administration and lawmakers from both parties.
What’s in the bill: Tax credits, renewables on public lands
There’s no doubt that solar and wind power will benefit from the Investment Tax Credit extensions included in the bill. For solar, that includes a two-year extension of the ITC at its current 26 percent through 2022 and at 22 percent through 2023, as well as an extended Jan. 1, 2026 deadline for completing projects that have claimed the credit based on when they started construction under “safe-harbor” provisions.
“That’s a pretty significant change,” Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a Tuesday webinar. “As we think about this solar decade, this gets us a lot of the way there.”
Offshore wind also gained full 30 percent ITC credits for projects started by the end of 2025. That will bolster a nascent industry that’s seen delays in federal permitting that could have threatened the build-out of a massive new clean energy resource in the coming decade, according to Dan Shreve, Wood Mackenzie’s head of global wind research.
These “commonsense emergency relief measures” represent “a bipartisan vote of support for the renewable industry and the hundreds of thousands of Americans building our clean energy future,” Gregory Wetstone, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said in a statement.
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