The U.S. Congress is close to enacting legislation that would provide a two-year extension of the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and additional funding for research and development, including on soft costs critical to distributed energy deployment and support for access to federal lands for renewable energy projects.
The full legislative package combines a $900 billion Covid-19 relief package and an omnibus spending bill for 2021.
Under the proposed legislation, the solar ITC will remain at 26% for projects that begin construction in 2021 and 2022, step down to 22% in 2023, and down to 10% in 2024 for commercial projects. Residential credit ends completely. Companies beginning construction on projects in 2021 would still have a four-year period to place their projects in service to take advantage of the ITC, with the statutory deadline for projects placed in service reset to before Jan. 1, 2026.
The legislation also includes a one-year extension of the production tax credit/ITC for land-based wind at 60% of their full value, and a 30% offshore wind investment tax credit for projects that start construction from Jan. 1, 2017 through Dec. 31, 2025.
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As the owner of a solar panel company in California, this makes our team extremely happy to hear! The fact that they are extending the federal tax credit to allow homeowners to save while also helping the planet shows we are making progress in the right direction.
Now we just need states like California to be able to approve more permits for solar panel installation. They are a bit slow on approval due to covid, but hopefully things will change in 2021.