Treasury chiefs in the US have been urged to “end the uncertainty” over proposed tax breaks for companies rolling out energy storage projects.
The director for global market applications at US multinational Fluence, Kiran Kumaraswamy, told a US House Subcommittee on Energy hearing that battery storage developers are still waiting for guidance from the Inland Revenue Service (IRS).
“The IRS issued comments received from industry over two years ago in response to its notice of new guidance, and we encourage the Department of Treasury and IRS to accelerate finalisation of that guidance,” Kumaraswamy said.
“Alternatively, Congress can resolve that uncertainty for the industry by issuing clarifying statutory guidance, such as the bipartisan Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act,” Kumaraswamy added.
“Doing so would remove constraints to storage project development while enabling all grid assets— gas plants, wind plants, and others— to benefit from the addition of energy storage to the electric system.”
Kumaraswamy said Fluence welcomed a recent decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to support grid operators opting to choose energy storage to make power systems more resilient.
But he added: “As conversations on resilience needs of the grid continue, we encourage FERC and grid operators to go further and include storage as a regular part of transmission planning, as well as establish a clearer regulatory framework for storage as a part of our nation’s transmission infrastructure.”
Fluence was launched last January by Siemens and AES. The company’s lithium-ion based storage platforms include Siestorage, Advancion (pictured) and SunFlex.
