Full Title: Solar’s Future Is Brighter Without Investment Tax Credit
Author(s): Katie Tubb
Publisher(s): Heritage Foundation
Publication Date: December 1, 2015
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Despite years of growth in the solar industry, lobbyists are hard at work to get an extension of a tax subsidy they have known for seven years would be expiring next December. Solar power added 5.5 gigawatts of installed capacity in 2014, a 54 percent increase from the previous year, and constituting nearly half of all renewable electricity capacity installed nationwide, according to a report out last week by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.[1] Currently, the United States ranks fourth in the world for total solar capacity.
Advocates of this solar investment tax credit (ITC) are trying to negotiate an extension in the omnibus spending or tax extenders bills before the end of the year, in addition to loosening the eligibility requirements by allowing companies that merely begin construction to still qualify for the tax credit. This could possibly allow companies to buy solar equipment before the expiration for “future projects,” though they have no contracts in place, and still qualify for the ITC.
However, these efforts would dilute the real growth that exists in the U.S. solar industry. Congress should allow the ITC to expire and remove other barriers to the free market that make the U.S. solar industry less competitive.