Regulation, Solar, Wind  -  March 23, 2020

Solar and wind industries ask Congress for extensions amidst COVID-19

Solar Energy Industries Association and American Wind Energy Association wrote a letter to Congress detailing the challenges the renewable energy faces in the U.S. due to the COVID-19 pandemic and offering solutions to ensure work opportunities and establish a new clean energy grid during the crisis.

As the wind and solar industries are slowed because of concerns with the spread of COVID-19, 364,000 workers are at risk of losing their jobs and tens of billions of dollars in investment could be threatened. SEIA and AWEA asked Congress to ensure that the policies previously provided to assist in their industries’ development would remain available and usable beyond their original timeline because of the delays in scheduling.

The industry associations’ primary request is passing legislation that allows member companies to continue operation and keep planned investments and developments to ensure job-creation that would have come out of those projects. To accomplish this, the proposal asks for an extension of wind and solar commence construction and safe harbor provisions to support the recovery of the industries and minimize problems caused by the pandemic. This request also includes receiving direct payments for or refundability of their tax credits in order to keep current projects in motion.

The letter says that extensions to the investment tax credit and production tax credit and the addition of storage to the ITC would create thousands of jobs and inject billions into the US economy. 

The full letter can be found here.

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