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AMERESCO INSIGHTS
INCENTIVES AND IMPLEMENTATION: HOW POLICY INFORMS THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION
Three major areas are key to meeting our country’s clean energy goals:
technology, finance, and policy. The three are interdependent and inform one
another, but the linchpin for all of them is policy. Strong, consistent clean
energy policy creates the supportive environment that is necessary to spur
technology and finance innovation. While the pace of clean energy deployment is
accelerating, it has been hampered by inconsistent policies and the lack of
policy certainty. But new developments, including incentives for microgrids,
could change the course of clean energy policy in the U.S.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TAX CREDITS
The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is the most timely and
pertinent policy available to accelerate the clean energy transition. Prior to
the IRA being signed into law, the U.S. was only expected to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions 17–25% by 2030, according to the Rhodium Group. A recent
Princeton-led study estimates that the IRA could lead to a 42% emissions
reduction in that same timeframe.
The IRA promotes the clean energy transition in large part by expanding and
providing policy certainty for tax credits, which are one of the main incentives
for clean energy in the U.S. The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) was previously
scheduled to phase down, and prior extensions were typically made for only short
time windows. The IRA reverses this trajectory, providing 10 years of tax credit
certainty at the original ITC rate of 30%. Various adders can even increase the
ITC to as much as 70% depending on the project location and whether it uses
domestic content.
The IRA extends the ITC to for the first time cover standalone energy storage
and microgrid controllers. By some estimates, changes like these could result in
microgrid costs decreasing by 10% – 50%. The legislation also extends the
Production Tax Credit (PTC) and expands its eligibility to once again include
solar projects, creating a potentially lucrative opportunity for the solar
industry.
After 2024, the IRA expands the ITC and PTC to apply to any zero-emissions
electricity production. This should allow more companies to adopt a
technology-agnostic approach. This approach has served Ameresco, as an
independent provider, well in designing systems to meet our customers’ needs.
Being able to use whatever clean energy technology — such as microgrids,
storage, solar, and biogas — allows developers to be nimble and flexible in the
face of changing economics, customer needs, and policies.
A major missed opportunity in the IRA was its lack of a 100% direct pay option,
a mechanism that allows an entity to claim a tax credit as a rebate, which would
have streamlined project deployment and opened up the incentive to many more
entities by allowing the tax credit to be claimed as a rebate.
However, a limited version of direct pay has been added for tax-exempt entities
such as state and local governments, public schools and universities, tribes,
and rural electric cooperatives, providing them a new tool to fund clean energy
projects. The IRA also allows an entity with a limited tax liability to transfer
the value of the tax credit to a corporate partner who can monetize the credit,
expanding the universe of potential funding partners with which companies like
Ameresco can work.
EQUITY AND THE ROLE OF MICROGRIDS
The IRA includes provisions to support underserved communities, which are
disproportionately affected by climate change. As one example, the law should
spur solar project development in underserved communities by providing a 20%
bonus tax credit for solar projects on federally-subsidized affordable housing
projects and a 10% bonus credit for solar projects in low-income communities.
Additionally, the IRA authorizes millions in new federal spending to help reduce
emissions and improve resilience in these areas. This includes $27 billion for a
new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that can help deploy distributed technologies
like microgrids in low-income communities, $3 billion for Environmental Justice
Block Grants to support climate resiliency and adaptation, $37 million to reduce
air pollution in schools, and $235 million for tribal climate resilience.
The legislation will also support energy equity by helping to unleash microgrid
deployment, building on programs already in place such as FEMA’s Building
Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. BRIC has been
supporting the development of microgrids to increase resilience for states,
local communities, and tribes. The IRA encourages more of this work by providing
FEMA incentives to develop more low-carbon and net-zero energy projects via its
disaster recovery programs.
FREE INFO SHEET: LEVERAGING THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT
Ameresco can help identify and develop opportunities that leverage available
incentives in support of your organization’s clean energy goals. Download
Ameresco’s IRA solution sheet for information about climate and tax incentives.
Download Now
Microgrids at community centers have already demonstrated their usefulness in
powering emergency shelters, cooling centers, and places to charge mobile
devices. Deploying microgrids in low-income communities is one way of increasing
those communities’ access to the benefits of local clean energy.
Microgrids are also expected to play a huge role in infrastructure stability.
This is exemplified by projects like the Parris Island Military Microgrid in
South Carolina’s Hurricane Alley, an area prone to power outages. To ensure that
this mission-critical Department of Defense facility could remain online in the
case of a 14-day outage, Ameresco helped the facility install a microgrid.
Across the U.S., whether for military operations or hospitals, microgrids are
expected to play an increasingly significant role in ensuring a stable power
system to support resilience needs.
IMPLEMENTING AND SUPPORTING CLEAN ENERGY POLICY
While focus in recent months has been on federal legislation, policy at the
state and local level always remains critical. States like California, Illinois,
Massachusetts, New York, and Hawaii have been setting aggressive clean energy
policy standards, driving progress and complementing action at the federal
level.
If the IRA does get the U.S. to around 40% emissions reductions by 2030, as
projected, we’ll still be 10 percentage points short of the 50% reduction needed
to comply with our Paris climate agreement target. With entrepreneurial efforts
and supportive policies, states and the private sector can help us close that
10% gap. Companies like Ameresco will play a key role by deploying
private-sector finance to build more projects.
While financing should be easier with the new federal policy, other obstacles
remain that could slow clean energy deployment. Currently, the U.S. has a
significant backlog of clean energy projects, which can get stuck in
interconnection queues for years. The IRA provides some ability to include
interconnection costs as part of the investment tax credit. This is helpful, but
we still need to clear out existing backlogs and get projects online as quickly
as possible, especially given that the queues could grow exponentially with the
new projects that will be spurred by the IRA.
One ongoing issue will be ensuring that state, regional, and federal agencies
have the staff in place to conduct interconnection studies and permit the many
new projects that will be coming across their desks. The IRA includes some
funding to help address this; additional investments will also be needed. In
addition to the challenges of staffing agencies, adequately staffing the solar
and energy storage workforce that the IRA will finance is going to be a serious
challenge.
Staffing is also an issue at the more local level. An energy manager for a
school district, for example, has to focus on keeping the facility running and
may not have the staff to aggressively pursue clean energy projects. As the IRA
opens the floodgates to many more projects, companies like Ameresco can serve as
staff multipliers to help get projects done.
> This kind of customer focus also turns out to be key in supporting strong
> energy policy. If Ameresco helps a customer become more efficient, save money,
> and gain resilience, that customer often becomes our greatest spokesperson.
>
> They are then more likely to influence their legislators to support good
> policies, even in regions that haven’t embraced clean technology historically.
> We’ve seen this become a virtuous cycle, in which positive projects create
> more positive support for these policies.
We must all continue working at the federal, state, and local level to push the
industry forward and create a positive policy environment. Working together and
with groups like Think Microgrid, American Clean Power Association, and the
Solar Energy Industries Association, we can help drive the policies that will
unleash the clean energy deployment we need to meet our climate goals.
GET IN TOUCH
Ameresco can help you design and implement a comprehensive plan to boost energy
resiliency, while keeping on pace towards decarbonization goals.
Get in touch today to get the conversation started. It’s time to take action!
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