ITC or PTC? Xendee adds IRA incentives into microgrid modeling software

The Inflation Reduction Act will change project modeling economics for the better. The new incentives will be especially valuable for microgrids designs. To better account for these new variables, Xendee is integrating latest tax incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act directly into its platform so that engineers can see the policy benefits on overall costs or determine the capabilities associated with increased expenditure.

“These new features allow engineers to proactively design and optimize their energy project based on the real value streams and incentives that are available,” said Zack Pecenak, Lead Engineer at Xendee. “Instead of just adding these savings in later as a line item, this allows Xendee to plan and optimize the system around the new tax incentives. This creates both a more accurate view of project financials and allows Xendee to optimize the projects in light of the incentives. For instance, the applied tax credit may change which technologies are chosen or how they are sized or placed.”

To implement tax savings in the Xendee platform, users are now provided with an extended widget for each applicable technology. From here, users can elect to implement the tax savings and even select the incentive they would like to apply.

For instance, the Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is a 30% credit that can be applied to both residential and commercial solar PV installations. This is a flat rate and had been set to reduce to a mere 6% before the passing of this bill. Alternatively, engineers can also elect to utilize the Production Tax Credit, wherein they will be paid tax incentives based on their production.

Xendee allows the modeling of both systems as well as the capabilities to analyze each and determine which solution would be more beneficial to the project.

Additionally, the new features also apply to the modeling of green hydrogen within Xendee. Modeling hydrogen production, storage, and use within Xendee already exists as a module; however, engineers are now able to take advantage of and associate the $3 tax credit per kilogram of green hydrogen produced, making this opportunity attractive to several facilities.

“Xendee’s new tax incentive features give decision makers an opportunity to consider sustainable technologies that may have earlier been financially unattractive or completely out of the scope of the project,” said Michael Stadler, co-founder and CTO of Xendee. “For instance, with the incentives for hydrogen production, a facility that never would have considered it might become a net exporter of hydrogen or even use it to power their own fleet of vehicles.”

Tags: microgrids, software, utility-scale, Xendee