Xendee, a provider of renewable energy and microgrid project design and decision support software, has launched a series of new features that incorporate the latest tax incentives from the new Energy Reduction Act. inflation directly in its platform. This allows engineers to quickly incorporate the benefits of these policies into their projects and see the effects on overall costs or determine the capabilities associated with increased spending. This means that many more projects can become financially viable and will significantly increase investment in microgrids, especially as outages become more frequent and energy prices continue to rise.
“These new capabilities allow engineers to proactively design and optimize their energy project based on actual value streams and available incentives,” said Zack Pecenak, Principal Engineer at Xendee. “Instead of just adding these savings later as a line item, this allows Xendee to plan and optimize the system around new tax incentives. This both creates a more accurate view of project finances and allows Xendee to optimize projects in light of incentives. For example, the tax credit applied may change the technologies chosen or the way they are sized or placed.
To implement tax savings in the Xendee platform, users now have an extended widget for each applicable technology. From there, users can choose to implement the tax savings and even select the incentive they want to apply. For example, the Solar Investment Tax Credit (CII) is a 30% credit that can be applied to residential and commercial solar PV installations. This is a flat rate and was to be reduced to just 6% before this bill was passed. Alternatively, engineers can also choose to use the production tax credit, in which they will receive tax incentives based on their production. Xendee allows modeling of both systems as well as the capabilities to analyze each and determine which solution would be most beneficial for the project.
Additionally, the new features also apply to green hydrogen modeling within Xendee. The modeling of hydrogen production, storage and use in Xendee already exists as a module; however, engineers can now take advantage of and associate the tax credit of $3 per kilogram of green hydrogen produced, making this opportunity attractive for multiple facilities.
“Xendee’s new tax incentive features give decision makers the opportunity to consider sustainable technologies that may have previously been financially unattractive or completely out of the project’s reach,” said Michael Stadler, co-founder and CTO of Xendee. “For example, with the hydrogen production incentives, a facility that would never have considered becoming a net exporter of hydrogen or even using it to power its own fleet of vehicles.”
News article from Xendee Corporation