Renewable Tax Credits Need Renewing

Before Congress lets out for recess, the Senate is expected to again consider extending the tax credits for renewable sources of energy that will otherwise expire at the end of this year. That the extension has already failed to pass twice this summer makes investors in solar and wind projects anxious, and many solar power companies are looking at relocating to other countries if the credits are not extended.

Spanish company Abengoa Solar has said they will pull the plug on a 280-megawatt solar-thermal plant currently planned in Arizona if the Senate does not pass the full eight-year extension, as the company expects it will take six years for them to get online (and thus, for the tax credits to apply). Sempra Generation has stated that a plan to develop 500 megawatts of solar power is contingent on the extension of the tax credits. To put that in perspective, approximately 150 megawatts of grid-connected photovoltaic capacity was installed in the United States in 2007. The expiration of the tax credits would also dampen the growth and innovation of the wind industry, which grew by 45 percent last year and, thanks in part to T. Boone Pickens, is expected to grow even more in the next few years.

Congress may be reluctant to pass legislation that will cost taxpayers more money. According to Time, an extension of the credit will cost taxpayers about $1 billion (equivalent, as the article points out, to about half a week of the Iraq war). But the cost to taxpayers is paltry compared to the cost of not encouraging the renewable industry. One consulting company reports that the expiration of the tax credit could result in the loss of 116,000 jobs and $19 billion of investments.

Tags: Energy

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