Edison Electric Institute laid out its 2022 legislative priorities in its annual Wall Street briefing last week, saying the investor-owned utilities it represents are key to building clean energy infrastructure but need enhanced federal tax credits to meet the nation’s climate goals.

Brian Wolff, EEI | EEI

“It’s really about a robust clean energy tax package,” Brian Wolff, executive vice president for public policy and external affairs, said Wednesday from the Nasdaq MarketSite at Times Square in New York. “Whatever package that the Congress comes up with next, that’s something that we hope will take place in the next quarter of this year.”

The production tax credit (PTC) and investment tax credit (ITC) for renewable energy development need to be extended and expanded, Wolff said. The PTC expired at the end of 2021. The ITC, a solar-only credit, is phasing out, with reduced benefits over time. The benefit rate, previously 30%, is 26% in 2022, 22% in 2023 and 10% thereafter.

Ten-year extensions of the credits are part of the Build Back Better Act (BBB), the $1.75 trillion economic and climate package stalled in the Senate because of opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (See Build Back Better and Beyond: Insights for the Year Ahead.)

EEI’s main lobbying efforts include passage of the credits, possibly in a reworked BBB or in a separate bill. The trade group is seeking “optionality in choosing between the PTC and the ITC for solar” so that “everyone is going to be out there deploying solar on a level playing field,” Wolff said.

It wants a 100% direct-pay option to recoup benefits in a cash tax refund versus tax credits.

EEI also is pursuing new credits for transmission, storage and hydrogen and a nuclear PTC for existing facilities.

“I can’t emphasize the importance it means for our industry … not to take these zero-carbon facilities offline,” Wolff said, referring to the nuclear credit. “That’s only going to take us backwards.”

Natural gas also needs to remain a part of the resource mix for the foreseeable future, he said.  

Emily Sanford Fisher, EEI | EEI

EEI General Counsel Emily Sanford Fisher said the industry is lobbying to deploy “advanced dispatchable renewables including advanced wind and solar technologies and advanced power electronics that will allow us to better integrate these into the grid [and] zero-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia, that could be produced from a variety of sources.”

“As Brian mentioned, nuclear is incredibly important to our industry and to maintaining our zero-emissions goals, and we are also focused on advancing technologies: carbon capture, utilization and storage — particularly for our natural gas generation — and advanced demand-efficiency and long duration storage.”

In its prepared remarks EEI said, “establishing alternative cost-sharing formulas and providing financial incentives for investing in deployment of these technologies, including technology-neutral production or investment tax credits, loan guarantees, grants, secure loans and other innovative means, can help to expedite commercialization of the next generation of 24/7 carbon-free technologies.”

After the briefing Wednesday, EEI President Thomas Kuhn met with President Joe Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and top energy advisers at the White House as part of a roundtable discussion with utility CEOs, who lobbied the president to make sure the tax credits are extended.

“They’re back there talking about what this really means for our companies, but more importantly, what those tax credits will mean for our customers,” Wolff said.

In a letter sent Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, utilities and other companies urged Congress to pass the tax credits along with other provisions of the Build Back Better Act.

“The climate and clean energy provisions in Build Back Better, including tax credits for innovation as well as grants and other funding to support communities in transition, would harness market forces and help spur private sector investment at the scale needed to meet our long-term climate goals,” the companies wrote.