Biden signs Inflation Reduction Act bringing certainty to clean energy industry

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes unprecedented clean energy investment, into law.

The legislation will invest USD 369 billion (EUR 364bn) in energy security and climate change programmes over the next 10 years. The White House says that thanks to the climate provisions in the bill the US will have 950 million solar panels, 120,000 wind turbines and 2,300 grid-scale battery plants by 2030.

Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association (ACP), said the bill becoming a law is “the starting gun for a period of regulatory certainty which will triple the size of the US clean energy industry and generate over USD 900 billion in economic activity through construction of new clean energy projects.”

Abigail Ross Hopper, president and chief executive of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) commented that the IRA’s long-term investments in clean energy and new incentives for energy storage, provide solar and storage businesses with the certainty they need to deploy and meet Biden’s climate goals.

Gregory Wetstone, president and chief executive of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), said: “With this legislation, America can finally move beyond years of on-again, off-again renewable tax credits to a long-term clean energy tax platform that will provide renewable companies with the stability they need to do business.”

The IRA passed the Senate and the House this month after at the end of July Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin reached an agreement to add it to the budget reconciliation bill. This came after months of negotiations and the failed passage of the Build Back Better plan last year. The IRA is considered a trimmed-down version of the Build Back Better Act.

In comments following the Senate’s passage of the bill, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M Granholm said it would “be the most consequential energy legislation in decades, and the most significant federal climate action ever.”

(USD 1 = EUR 0.987)

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