US Senator Edward J. Markey will soon introduce legislation to extend a federal investment tax credit for renewable energy projects until 2025, expected to encourage further development of offshore wind projects in US waters, Bloomberg reports.
Back in December, the US government extended the production tax credit and alternate investment tax credit for renewable energy projects until 2020, allowing wind projects to qualify as long as they start construction before the end of the period.
The credit is currently worth 2.3 cents for a kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by wind power.
Markey disclosed his plans to ask for a 5-year extension of the current tax credit for renewables during the U.S. Offshore Wind Leadership Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts, the Democratic senator’s home base.
“We have an opportunity to provide a long-term extension of this tax policy because the budget experts in Washington don’t know what we in this room know,” Markey was quoted by Bloomberg as saying during the conference.
“Offshore wind is poised to take off in the United States.”
US currently has no operational offshore wind farms, but that is soon about to change seeing that Deepwater Wind is pressing on with the construction of the 30MW Block Island offshore wind farm off Rhode Island, expected to be fully operational by the end of 2016.
Offshore WIND Staff; Image source: Twitter