News
More wind Incentives
The bill is designed to give tax refunds and grants for using clean, efficient energy. One of its provisions would award grants of 0.85 cents for each kilowatt of electricity produced by a corporation from certain
renewables, including wind utilities.
January 13, 2006
by Anne Adams
in The Recorder
RICHMOND — Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (DArlington) is sponsoring legislation in the current General Assembly session that, among other things, provides grant money for renewable energy use.
The bill is designed to give tax refunds and grants for using clean, efficient energy. One of its provisions would award grants of 0.85 cents for each kilowatt of electricity produced by a corporation from certain
renewables, including wind utilities.
Wildlife biologist Dan Boone, who has become a point man on wind energy in the Appalachias, analyzed what this could mean if Highland New Wind Development could qualify for such a grant.
HNWD’s proposed project here is estimated to be a 39-megawatt plant with a 20-year life-span. Coupled with the federal production tax credits, Boone says, “This available tax and grant subsidy would
enable (HNWD) to cover all or nearly all of the cost of installing this proposed wind plant.”
Under the senator’s proposal, the money allocated through these grants could only come from offshore wind facilities and other wind development.
Assuming a 30 percent capacity factor on HNWD’s facility, Boone estimates if the developer were to qualify for the Virginia grant as proposed, it could get $871,000 a year for 20 years.
Were the project operational in time for the federal production tax credit (.019 cents per kilowatt) it could realize better than $1.9 million annually to offset taxes for 10 years.
Boone believes it’s unlikely the project could qualify for both simultaneously. Under the scenario where the facility could only become eligible for Virginia’s grant after the PTC runs out, its 20-year total would be more than $28 million.
If the Virginia energy grant coincided with the federal credits, that number would rise to a cumulative $36.9 million.
The project is estimated to cost $60 million to construct.
The bill is designed to give tax refunds and grants for using clean, efficient energy. One of its provisions would award grants of 0.85 cents for each kilowatt of electricity produced by a corporation from certain
renewables, including wind utilities.
Wildlife biologist Dan Boone, who has become a point man on wind energy in the Appalachias, analyzed what this could mean if Highland New Wind Development could qualify for such a grant.
HNWD’s proposed project here is estimated to be a 39-megawatt plant with a 20-year life-span. Coupled with the federal production tax credits, Boone says, “This available tax and grant subsidy would
enable (HNWD) to cover all or nearly all of the cost of installing this proposed wind plant.”
Under the senator’s proposal, the money allocated through these grants could only come from offshore wind facilities and other wind development.
Assuming a 30 percent capacity factor on HNWD’s facility, Boone estimates if the developer were to qualify for the Virginia grant as proposed, it could get $871,000 a year for 20 years.
Were the project operational in time for the federal production tax credit (.019 cents per kilowatt) it could realize better than $1.9 million annually to offset taxes for 10 years.
Boone believes it’s unlikely the project could qualify for both simultaneously. Under the scenario where the facility could only become eligible for Virginia’s grant after the PTC runs out, its 20-year total would be more than $28 million.
If the Virginia energy grant coincided with the federal credits, that number would rise to a cumulative $36.9 million.
The project is estimated to cost $60 million to construct.
Filed under
:
Tax Breaks & Subsidies
:
Virginia
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