The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) 45X Advanced Manufacturing Tax Credit provides a transferrable federal tax credit for domestic manufacturers of wind turbine components. In the legislation, there was no requirement that wind turbines be certified. In comments submitted in November 2022, DWEA pointed out the risk this posed to the Treasury Department from scammers. DWEA also noted certification was required for the distributed wind inverter tax credit in the original legislation. The IRS agreed with DWEA and, in initial 45X guidance issued in December 2023, the agency instituted a certification requirement. However, in what DWEA believes was a drafting error, the IRS required certification to ACP-101-1-2021. This was a problem, because all the current certified small turbines are certified to the original certification standard, AWEA-9.1-2009. DWEA submitted comments on this provision, requesting the IRS to include the earlier standard and highlighting that both standards were listed for the inverter tax credit.
In additional 45X guidance, which was published in the Oct. 28 Federal Register, the IRS accepted DWEA’s request. See the following excerpt on page 16, under the heading “Total Rated Capacity of the Completed Wind Turbine”:
“Another commenter recommended including both American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) 9.1-2009 and ANSI/ACP 101-1-2021 as acceptable wind turbine certification standards. The commenter explained that ANSI/ACP 101-1-2021 is a revision of the AWEA standard (the original small wind certification standard, and all currently certified small wind systems are certified to this standard) that streamlines the certification process, but there is no requirement that turbines with the original certification must recertify to the new ANSI/ACP standard. Thus, the commenter states that including both standards in the final rules will allow currently certified turbines made in the United States to earn section 45X credits as well as new turbines currently in the certification process following the newer standard. The Treasury Department and the IRS agree with this request and these final regulations revise proposed §1.45X-3(c)(6) to add both AWEA 9.1-2009 and ANSI/ACP 101-1-2021 as acceptable wind turbine certification standards.”
“This is another example of the value of the federal policy engagement that DWEA provides,” said DWEA President Mike Bergey.