Today, the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that applications will open at 9 a.m. ET on May 28, 2024, for the 2024 Program Year of the Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program under Section 48(e) of the Internal Revenue Code. All applications submitted within the first 30 days, by 11:59 p.m. ET on June 27, will be treated as submitted on the same date and at the same time. This ensures that all applicants, regardless of size or resources, have an equal opportunity to participate. Following the initial 30-day period, DOE will continue to accept applications on a rolling basis.

Treasury and the IRS also announced that approximately 325 MW of available capacity will rollover to the 2024 program year. This will add to the annual 1.8 GW of capacity for a total of over 2.1 GW of capacity available in 2024 to help spur additional investment and advance President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda by lowering energy costs for Americans, investing in good-paying clean energy jobs in low-income communities and supporting small business growth.

During the initial 30-day application window in 2023, the program received more than 46,000 applications, representing more than 8 GW of generation capacity.

To provide information about the application process ahead of the application opening, Treasury and the Dept. of Energy will host a webinar open to the public about the 2024 program year application process on May 16, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. ET. Potential applicants can register for the webinar here. Additional guidance including the 2024 Revenue Procedure, final regulations and program resources to help applicants prepare their submissions are available on the DOE program homepage.

This provision of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provides a 10- or 20-percentage point boost to the investment tax credit for qualified solar or wind facilities in low-income communities, and is already turbocharging the construction of clean energy facilities in communities across the country, encouraging new market participants, benefiting Americans that have experienced adverse health or environmental effects and lacked economic opportunities, and lowering energy costs and related housing costs for families.

“This groundbreaking incentive to invest in low-income communities created by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is creating jobs and opportunity while lowering energy costs for communities that were long underinvested in,” said U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “In the program’s first year, we saw sky-high demand for solar and wind investments, and we expect that momentum to continue as President Biden’s economic agenda ensures all Americans benefit from the growth of the clean energy economy.”

The Low-Income Communities Bonus Credit Program annually allocates 1.8 GW of capacity available through competitive application across four categories of qualified solar or wind facilities with maximum output of less than 5 MW. According to the final regulations, at least 50% of the capacity limitation in each category or sub-reservation will be made available to facilities that meet additional selection criteria. Including the 324.8 MW of available capacity announced today that will rollover, the IRS will allocate the total capacity for the 2024 program year in the following manner:

News item from the Dept. of the Treasury