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In an announcement from the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), 50 diverse stakeholders, including environmental organizations, electric utilities, renewable energy companies, transmission developers, business associations, labor unions, and clean energy trade associations wrote to the House Ways and Means Committee today requesting the inclusion of an investment tax credit (ITC) for regionally significant transmission in the Committee’s budget reconciliation package. The coalition called the transmission ITC “a critical element” in realizing a decarbonized North American energy grid.
“A well-designed transmission ITC, with appropriate guardrails on eligibility and usable by all types of transmission developers, can spur needed investment in large-scale transmission necessary to cost effectively decarbonize the electric grid,” the stakeholders wrote. “It will also help to keep customer electric rates affordable by directly reducing, through the tax credit, the customer cost of transmission.”
While the coalition applauded the Senate-passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for recognizing the need for more transmission, the group noted the mistaken impression that the bipartisan infrastructure package contained $73 billion for new, high-voltage transmission projects.
“Rather, it’s two major provisions on transmission address different aspects of the transmission challenge but will not in and of themselves deliver on the overarching objective,” the signatories said.
ACORE’s President and CEO Gregory Wetstone added, “It will be very difficult to achieve our vital carbon reduction targets without a transmission ITC to incentivize the investment we need to modernize today’s balkanized and antiquated grid infrastructure.”