On the recordJune 4, 2015
I am pleased to be joined by my colleague, the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey, in introducing the Power Efficiency and Resilience, POWER, Act. The POWER Act would expand tax incentives for industrial energy efficiency systems, including combined heat and power, CHP, and waste heat to power, WHP, technologies, making the incentives more accessible an providing parity with other forms of renewable energy. The upfront costs of CHP and WHP can be expensive, and facilities seeking to lower their energy bills often lack access to the capital needed for purchasing the equipment. The POWER Act aims to spur investment in these efficient technologies that capture wasted heat from electricity generation and industrial processes and use it to heat or cool buildings or to generate additional electricity. Capturing this otherwise wasted resource has the potential to increase electrical generation efficiency by nearly 80 percent and reduce electricity costs for industrial users. While technologies such as solar energy and fuel cells currently benefit from a 30 percent investment tax credit, ITC, the incentives for CHP are more limited. CHP systems are only eligible for a 10 percent ITC for the first 15 megawatts, MW, of projects that are smaller than 50 MW in capacity. Moreover, while WHP has the potential to produce 15 gigawatts of emissions-free electricity nationwide, it currently does not qualify for the ITC.…





