A Free-Market Energy Blog

Understanding Industrial Wind’s Production Tax Credit (Part II: 2020 Status)

By -- August 18, 2020

“In recent years, wind energy development costs have dropped while capacity factors increased dramatically. As such, the benefit to developers of the adjusted PTC is staggering.”

Wind power’s Production Tax Credit (PTC) has not expired as of 2020. And there is no certainty that it will ever be allowed to expire.

Under the phase-out, 2019 was supposed to be the last year wind projects could qualify for the PTC. Projects that started construction in 2019 and are placed in service within four years would earn 40% of the PTC or 1¢/kwh during the first 10-years of operation. But during the final hours before the December 2019 holiday break, Congress voted for a 1-year extension of the PTC through to 2020 and increased its value to 60% or 1.5¢/kwh.

Projects that started construction in 2019 would still earn the 40% PTC.…

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Understanding Industrial Wind’s Production Tax Credit (Part I: Introduction)

By -- August 17, 2020

“… the production tax credit will cost taxpayers $4.3 billion in 2021 and a cumulative $33.8 billion in the ten-year period from 2020 to 2029. After nearly 30 years, the wind industry’s reliance on the PTC has grown as has its cost to US taxpayers.”

The Production Tax Credit (PTC), first established under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, is a driving force for constructing otherwise uneconomic industrial wind turbines for electric generation. A per-kilowatt-hour credit, initially set at a lucrative 1.5¢, adjusted annually for inflation is 2.5¢ today.

The credit covers the first ten years of wind-turbine generation. The monetization occurs when wind developers sell the tax credits to federal tax-owing corporations, which offsets a significant percentage of the project’s capital costs.

Depending on actual power generation, and with very low marginal costs, wind energy can be sold at very low, and even negative, prices, ruining the economics of traditional power generation.…

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Energy Freedom Resolution

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 14, 2020

Ed. Note: The Resolution below brings together a number of pro-consumer, pro-taxpayer, free-market groups in favor of affordable, plentiful, sustainable energies. An opening membership list is provided here.

This resolution is a statement on the relationship between energy, freedom, and human wellbeing. The members of this coalition agree: a free market is the means through which affordable, reliable energy can best enhance people’s lives, here in America and across the world.


I. Affordable, reliable energy is a vital aspect of human wellbeing, providing electricity for our factories and hospitals, heat and light for our homes and schools, and locomotion for the cars, trucks, trains, and ships that move people and goods about the planet. Affordable, reliable energy enables the modern standards of wealth and health we enjoy.

II. Energy derived from carbon-based fuels fits the affordable, reliable profile necessary for human wellbeing.…

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Harassing Energy: The Latest in Climate Litigation (EID’s Allison nails it)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 13, 2020
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Jerry Taylor’s Warning Against Al Gore Applies to Harris/Biden too

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 12, 2020
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“Power the Future” (new pro-worker group joins consumer, taxpayer energy groups)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 11, 2020
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Shell vs. Petroleum: Statism at the Pump

By Robert Bradley Jr. --
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California Water Efficiency Standards: Peter Gleick vs. Trump

By -- August 10, 2020
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Physical Climate Science NOW Settled? (Dessler says yes)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- August 6, 2020
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Spanish Renewable Giant Iberdrola Enters Texas with a Thud

By -- August 5, 2020
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