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Treasury Finalizes Another IRA Tax Credit Before You Know What

The expanded investment tax credit rules are out.

The Treasury Department building.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

In the waning days of the Biden administration, the Treasury Department is dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on the tax rules that form the heart of the Inflation Reduction Act and its climate strategy. Today, Treasury has released final rules for the Section 48 Investment Tax Credit, which gives project owners (and/or their tax equity partners) 30% back on their investments in clean energy production.

The IRA-amended investment tax credit, plus its sibling production tax credit, are updates and expansion on tax policies that have been in place for decades supporting largely the solar and wind industries. To be clear, today’s announcement does not contain the final rules for the so-called “technology-neutral” clean electricity tax credits established under the IRA, which will supercede the existing investment and production tax credits beginning next year and for which all non-carbon emitting sources of energy can qualify.

But projects that begin construction this year can still qualify for and claim the legacy credits, which were expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act to include things like standalone energy storage. Projects that go into service this year would only be eligible for the legacy credits, while a project that begins construction this year and goes into service next year or later could choose between the legacy credits or the tech neutral credits, but not both.

The proposed rules, released in November of last year, set off a flurry of campaigning and lobbying by the industry, seeking adjustments to their favor. The final regulations largely hew to the earlier release, although they do include clarifications on what precise aspects of an energy system qualify for the credits. Under the final rules, for instance the “upgrading equipment” necessary for “cleaning and conditioning” biogas — i.e. removing other gases to make it a pure gas stream — can qualify for the credit.

Going into the end of the year, the major items left on the Treasury Department’s agenda were the tech neutral tax credits, rules for the advanced manufacturing tax credit, and rules for credits related to the production of clean hydrogen; advanced manufacturing tax credit rules came out in late October. While the Biden Treasury is doing its best to get rules out the door before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the fate of all clean energy tax credits is up in the air as Republicans prepare take power in Washington and start carving up the IRA, whether by “sledgehammer” or by “scalpel.”

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Sparks

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Google and Exxon logos.
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The energy giant ExxonMobil is planning a huge investment in natural gas-fired power plants that will power data centers directly, a.k.a. behind the meter, meaning they won’t have to connect to the electric grid. That will allow the fossil fuel giant to avoid making the expensive transmission upgrades that tend to slow down the buildout of new electricity generation. And it’ll add carbon capture to boot.

The company said in a corporate update that it plans to build facilities that “would use natural gas to generate a significant amount of high-reliability electricity for a data center,” then use carbon capture to “remove more than 90% of the associated CO2 emissions, then transport the captured CO2 to safe, permanent storage deep underground.” Going behind the meter means that this generation “can be installed at a pace that other alternatives, including U.S. nuclear power, cannot match,” the company said.

The move represents a first for Exxon, which is famous for its far-flung operations to extract and process oil and natural gas but has not historically been in the business of supplying electricity to customers. The company is looking to generate 1.5 gigawatts of power, about 50% more than a large nuclear reactor, The New York Timesreported.

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Donald Trump.
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“GET READY TO ROCK!!!” he added.

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Companies are racing to finish the paperwork on their Department of Energy loans.

A clock and money.
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Of the over $13 billion in loans and loan guarantees that the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office has made under Biden, nearly a third of that funding has been doled out in the month since the presidential election. And of the $41 billion in conditional commitments — agreements to provide a loan once the borrower satisfies certain preconditions — that proportion rises to nearly half. That includes some of the largest funding announcements in the office’s history: more than $7.5 billion to StarPlus Energy for battery manufacturing, $4.9 billion to Grain Belt Express for a transmission project, and nearly $6.6 billion to the electric vehicle company Rivian to support its new manufacturing facility in Georgia.

The acceleration represents a clear push by the outgoing Biden administration to get money out the door before President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to hollow out much of the Department of Energy, takes office. Still, there’s a good chance these recent conditional commitments won’t become final before the new administration takes office, as that process involves checking a series of nontrivial boxes that include performing due diligence, addressing or mitigating various project risks, and negotiating financing terms. And if the deals aren’t finalized before Trump takes office, they’re at risk of being paused or cancelled altogether, something the DOE considers unwise, to put it lightly.

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