The US Treasury opened its doors to a scheme offering payments for renewable energy in lieu of tax credits today.
The initiative is designed to help energy generating businesses and was introduced via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009. The scheme was set up partly because of the nose-diving investor demand for tax credits. The tax credit system has to date been the US government favoured incentive for renewable energy projects.
Energy generators have to start construction on their projects during 2009 or 2010 to be eligible. Technology likely to recieve funding include small and large wind energy, biomass, geothermal, landfill gas, waste to energy, hydro-electric, marine energy, solar energy, fuel cells, CHP and geothermal heat pumps.
It is hoped that by providing this direct cash injection, the near term goal of creating and retaining green jobs is achieved, as well as the long-term benefit of expanding the use of renewable energy in the US. No direct injection of cash is proposed in the UK for such a wide range of commercial scale renewable energy projects.
