Last week, the American Wind Energy Alliance (AWEA) released an outline of a plan to extend the wind production tax credit (PTC) for an additional six years. Because the PTC provides credits for 10 years, AWEA is asking for a 16 year subsidy period. Some have called this AWEA’s plan a phase-out because it reduces the amount of the credit each year, but the reality is this plan is an extension of the PTC. The plan is short on details and analysis, but more importantly it fails to justify extending the PTC for a single year, yet alone six years.
