Through the Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into law in the summer of 2022, federal tax credit programs totaling $663 billion over the life of the 10-year legislation. Knox County Area Partnership President Ken Springer explains the tax credits will help fund clean energy projects:
“What we as a community can expect to start seeing more of if these tax credits are going to help fund projects in a lot of different industries, largely clean energy industries. Electric vehicle industry projects, battery component manufacturing, there is a lot of tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to change the solar industry supply chain to one that has more domestic content in it. Basically, because the federal government is putting a bunch of tax credits behind these industries, the expectation is that is going to spur a lot of new project leads in those specific industries.”
In the last year, Springer reports 50 percent of the request for proposals in Knox County have had some sort of relation to the electric vehicle supply chain or rechargeable batteries.