America’s Landmark Inflation Reduction Act Rolls Out Red Carpet to Clean Energy Innovation

When President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in August 2022, clean energy leaders recognized that this was the largest federal investment in alternative energy and sustainability in American history. As a clean energy advocate and business leader, I applaud the historic measures the United States is taking to reach its ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by driving clean energy innovation. The IRA will support home-grown green technology production including energy storage, solar, wind, carbon capture and clean hydrogen.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was instrumental in drafting the IRA which is an historic measure taken by the United States to reach ambitious goals of carbon neutrality while inspiring other countries around the world.  In addition, Senator Schumer has worked relentlessly to increase federal incentives to bring manufacturing back from overseas, including in tech and clean energy industries. He shepherded the Inflation Reduction Act to passage in the Senate, the largest climate package to every pass the chamber at $369 billion. Schumer fought to include targeted incentives to help clean battery companies, including my company Zinc8 Energy Solutions, reach commercialization by expanding their manufacturing operations in the United States.

IRA’s Section 45X Golden for Cleantech Sector

Manufacturing products credits contained within the IRA’s Section 45X provide distinct and direct benefits and incentives to green technology manufacturing and production based in the United States.  Every eligible battery cell will receive a $35 credit, scaling with the capacity of the battery, with incentives to last at their initial level until 2029, before phasing down from 2030 to a phase out stage beginning in 2032.

There is also $10B to support construction of clean energy tech factories, or for retrofitting existing factories with tools and production lines to make clean energy equipment and components. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $6B incentives to support R&D and production of batteries in the US as well as supporting the creation of a domestic supply chain.

As the Canadian CEO of an energy storage company, these manufacturing product credits drove our company to announce our inaugural production facility in the United States.

“One of the politicians most instrumental in drafting the IRA, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has been working in the last few months to encourage zinc battery storage technology company Zinc8 {my company} to set up shop in his New York constituency,” reported Energy Storage News.

On August 12^th, the day the IRA was passed in the Senate, I was invited by Sen. Schumer to speak with him to a local crowd in Kingston, New York at ipark87, an industrial and technology campus in Ulster County in New York’s Hudson Valley, formerly a contaminated asbestos dumping ground. We are carefully evaluating this site as a potential production facility to commercialize our patented zinc-air energy storage systems, while also evaluating the offers from other municipalities across America and look to have a final decision in the coming weeks.

Revitalizing Clean Energy Manufacturing in the United States

With the passage of the IRA, President Biden leads the charge on the incentivization of domestic clean energy technology production. With the rapidly growing demand of alternative energy American manufacturing and clean energy supply chains, there will also be growing requirement for skilled workers nationwide.

Domestic sourcing is vital for the development of American clean energy. Innovative technologies are frequently invented in America but then manufactured in foreign countries including China, which don’t share core business values or environmental standards. The IRA ensures clean energy innovation and promotes American jobs, growth, and security. American workers will be supported with tax incentives directed at making American-sourced clean energy products.

By accelerating clean energy innovation and creating good jobs and economic development in communities across the country, America’s economic growth and global competitiveness will be the model every global citizen will look to emulate.

The IRA promises “good-paying union jobs in energy communities.” Clean energy tax credits will increase by 10% if the clean energy projects are established in communities that have previously relied upon the extraction, processing, transport or storage of coal, oil or natural gas as a significant source of employment,” reports Biden’s office which “will create jobs and economic development in the communities that have powered American for generations.”

My company Zinc8 is developing a low-cost, long duration zinc-air battery energy storage system that can store and discharge energy over durations of up to 100 hours, scalable to higher capacities with an increase in the size of storage tanks that hold zinc particles. We are preparing for a demonstration of our technology at a New York City housing complex by the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA) where a 100kW/1.5MWh zinc BESS is combined with onsite CHP generation. As winners of the New York Power Authorities’ ‘Innovation Challenge’, we will be demonstrating a 100kW/1MWh zinc-air ESS in a partnership with NYPA and the University at Buffalo.

America will reach their goals of carbon neutrality and inspire the rest of the world by strengthening domestic supply chains, engineering and manufacturing American-made, clean energy products to sell nationally and internationally.  Biden’s goal to reach 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035 is now attainable as America invests in the companies that are actively producing the technology to produce meaningful emissions reductions.  The passage of the IRA legislation ensures the survival of many innovative cleantech companies, as well as the creation of new, groundbreaking technology and companies, who will work tirelessly to ensure a clean energy planet.