Ice Energy Supports Proposed New Federal Tax Incentive Legislation for Energy Storage

WINDSOR, Colo., July 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Ice Energy, a leading provider of advanced energy storage solutions for the electric utility industry, today lauded the introduction of new legislation that would establish federal tax credits for investments in energy storage.

Introduced Monday, July 20 by U.S. Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), The Storage Technology of Renewable and Green Energy Act of 2010 Act (STORAGE Act 2010 – S. 3617) provides tax credits to qualifying storage projects, such as distributed thermal energy storage, that are connected to the U.S. electric grid.  

"The clean, smart and affordable electric power grid of the 21st century has been waiting for the STORAGE Act of 2010," said David Nemtzow, Chief Policy Officer for Ice Energy. "This key legislation addresses a critical but missing element of U.S. energy policy:  how to accelerate the deployment of energy storage.  Investment tax credits for storage, both distributed and centralized, will help jump start its wider deployment, just as tax credits have done for wind, solar, efficiency and many other energy technologies.

"We strongly commend Senators Wyden, Bingaman and Shaheen for their vision and leadership in introducing the STORAGE Act of 2010 and pushing to secure its passage when the Senate considers comprehensive energy legislation in the coming weeks," said Nemtzow.

In introducing the bill, Senator Bingaman, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, called the increased use of energy storage "essential to modernizing our electrical grid and to meeting our clean energy goals," noting, "Expanding our storage capacity will improve the efficiency, flexibility, and reliability of our electric grid, allowing us to wring the most power out of it, while adding large amounts of new renewable energy resources like wind and solar."

S. 3617 is a revision of S. 1091, the STORAGE Act, introduced by Senator Wyden in Congress last session.

The STORAGE Act 2010 offers an investment tax credit, and comparable tax incentives for publicly owned utilities, for three categories of energy storage facilities, including homeowners, businesses and utilities, who install qualifying energy storage projects. Commercial building owners, for example, could use the tax credit to help finance thermal cooling systems such as Ice Energy's Ice Bear system, which stores energy at night when generation is cleaner, cheaper and more efficient, and delivers that stored energy the following day to cool the building.

ABOUT ICE ENERGY

Ice Energy is a leading provider of advanced energy storage and smart grid solutions to the electric utility industry.  Founded in 2003, the company is dedicated to transforming energy system efficiency and improving grid reliability through the development of advanced technology solutions that promote the efficient use of energy resources, reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, and enable the transition to a cleaner, smarter, more sustainable power grid. The company is headquartered in Windsor, Colorado, with offices in Orange County and Sacramento, California. For more information, visit www.ice-energy.com or follow us on Twitter @ IceENRG .

SOURCE Ice Energy