Applications for the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit program under Section 48(e) of the Internal Revenue Code will open at 9am ET on October 19, 2023, according to a statement made on September 27 by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, U.S. Department of Energy, and Internal Revenue Service.
Treasury and the Department of Energy will establish the program help desk and hold a webinar about the application procedure on September 29 to provide details about it ahead of this deadline; potential applicants can sign up for the webinar here. After the event, a recording of the webinar will be posted online for those who were unable to attend. In the upcoming weeks, further resources to aid applicants in preparing their submissions will be made accessible on the Department of Energy web page.
The program, known as the Investing in America program, is part of President Biden's broader agenda to ensure all Americans benefit from the growth of the clean energy economy. Wally Adeyemo, the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, emphasized this goal, stating, "One of the goals of President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda is to ensure all Americans benefit from the growth of the clean energy economy."
This ground-breaking program, established through President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, is being hailed as the greatest climate investment in history. It aims to give eligible solar or wind installations in low-income communities a 10 or 20 percentage point boost to the Investment Tax Credit. The program has several objectives, including improving low-income areas' access to renewable energy, encouraging new market entrants, and helping communities that have suffered from negative health or environmental repercussions or a lack of economic opportunities. This initiative is expected to help small companies, cut energy prices for hard-working people, create well-paying clean energy jobs in low-income and Tribal areas, and advance President Biden's Investing in America Agenda.
According to earlier guidelines, four types of certified solar or wind projects with a maximum output of less than five megawatts will each receive 1.8 gigawatts of the program's available capacity through competitive application for the year 2023. Applications for the 2023 program are anticipated to be accepted up to the beginning of next year, depending on capacity. In the case of oversubscription in any category, the Treasury Department and IRS may decide to reallocate capacity between categories. Unclaimed capacity will carry over into the 2024 program year, when an additional base 1.8 gigawatts of capacity will be made available by application.
