The U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Department of Energy (DOE) have announced significant progress in the 2024 Program Year of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program. The program has received over 50,000 applications requesting more than 6 gigawatts of capacity for clean energy projects across the nation.
Applications for projects located in low-income communities, qualified low-income residential building projects, and qualified low-income economic benefit projects will be accepted on a rolling basis until October 10, 2024, at 11:59 PM ET. For projects on Indian Lands, applications will be accepted until November 12, 2024, at 11:59 PM ET.
“The Biden-Harris Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has driven historic investments in new clean power in communities that have been overlooked and left out for too long,” said U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “Lowering household energy bills and continuing to drive new investment to these communities will remain our priority in the second year of this groundbreaking program.”
Updates on available capacity by category can be accessed via the program capacity dashboard on the DOE program homepage. Treasury and IRS plan to release information about reallocations of remaining unallocated capacity soon. Applications that do not receive an allocation will be withdrawn but may reapply if eligible.
Treasury recently released proposed guidance for expanding the Clean Electricity Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program to include additional clean energy technologies like hydropower and geothermal. Public comments on this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking are open until October 3.
In its first year, the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program resulted in over $3.5 billion in clean energy investments from more than 49,000 solar facilities in low-income communities nationwide. These installations are expected to generate nearly 2 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity annually—equivalent to the total annual electricity use of approximately 200,000 average-sized U.S. households or about $270 million annually at typical retail rates.
The Biden-Harris Administration continues to focus on lowering costs for low-income communities and ensuring they benefit from the growth of the clean energy economy.
Further details including IRS Final Regulations for the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program under Section 48(e), Frequently Asked Questions, and other resources are available on the DOE program homepage.
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