How to Make Renewable Energy Competitive

How to Make Renewable Energy Competitive - NYTimes.com


How to Make Renewable Energy Competitive


By FELIX MORMANN and DAN REICHER



STANFORD, Calif.


Renewable energy needs help. Technological innovation has significantly reduced the cost of solar panels, wind turbines and other equipment, but renewable energy still needs serious subsidies to compete with conventional energy. Today, help comes mostly in the form of federal tax breaks.


These tax incentives, and the Congressional battle over extending them for wind projects beyond the end of this year, mean that other, more powerful policies to promote renewables are not getting the attention they deserve. If renewable energy is going to become fully competitive and a significant source of energy in the United States, then further technological innovation must be accompanied by financial innovation so that clean energy sources gain access to the same low-cost capital that traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas enjoy.


Two financial mechanisms that have driven investment in traditional energy projects — real estate investment trusts and master limited partnerships — could, with some help from Washington, be extended to renewable energy projects to lower their cost and make America’s energy future cleaner, cheaper — and more democratic.


Federal support for renewable energy today consists primarily of two tax breaks: tax credits and accelerated depreciation rates. But both tools have a very limited reach. Only investors with hefty tax bills, typically big banks or corporations, can exploit them to reduce their tax burden. Most potential investors, including tax-exempt pension funds and, importantly, retail investors trading stocks, don’t have big enough tax bills to exploit the break. As a result, the few remaining players whose considerable tax bills place them in the market for tax breaks are able to demand returns of up to 30 percent for investing in renewable energy projects — an investment known as “tax equity.”


There are better options. They may sound wonky, but they could prove revolutionary.


Real estate investment trusts, or REITs, which are traded publicly like stocks, could tap far broader pools of capital to vastly lower the cost of financing renewable energy. REITs have a market capitalization of over $440 billion while paying shareholders average dividends below 10 percent — roughly a third of the cost of tax equity investments for renewable energy.


Master limited partnerships carry the fund-raising advantages of a corporation: ownership interests are publicly traded and offer investors the liquidity, limited liability and dividends of classic corporations. Their market capitalization exceeds $350 billion. With average dividends of just 6 percent, these investment vehicles could substantially reduce the cost of financing renewables.


But current law makes using both of these investment vehicles for renewable energy difficult if not impossible. Washington could help in two ways. First, the Internal Revenue Service needs to clarify the eligibility of renewable power generation for REIT financing. Second, Congress needs to fix a bizarre distinction in the tax code that bars master limited partnerships from investing in “inexhaustible” natural resources like the sun and wind, while allowing investments in exhaustible resources like coal and natural gas. In 2008, as surging gasoline prices were infuriating American voters, Congress amended the tax code to enable master limited partnerships to invest in alternative transportation fuels like ethanol. We should treat power sources, like wind and solar farms, similarly.


There is hope. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, plans to introduce a bill to allow master limited partnership investment in renewable energy. This approach is preferable to a recent proposal by Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, and Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, to eliminate this investment option for fossil-fuel projects. Both moves would level the playing field between conventional and renewable energy, but the Coons bill does so by promoting, rather than limiting, economic growth across the energy industry.


These approaches could help renewable energy projects reduce their financing costs up to fivefold. These cost improvements could significantly reduce the price of renewable electricity and, over time, erase the need for costlier subsidies. Of course, making renewable energy eligible for master limited partnership and REIT financing would amount to a new kind of subsidy, because both are exempt from income tax. Indeed, some members of Congress fear that expanding master limited partnerships will erode the federal tax base. We don’t think so. Investors in master limited partnerships and REITs still pay taxes on dividends. Moreover, these investments would most likely bring many more renewable energy projects online, actually raising overall tax revenue.


A more valid concern is whether renewable energy master limited partnerships might be abused as tax shelters, reminiscent of what happened in the 1980s California “wind rush.” Back then investors cared more about putting turbines in the ground to secure tax credits to lower their tax bill on other income than whether the machines actually produced electricity.


History, however, need not repeat itself. Renewable energy master limited partnerships can guard against such abuse by ensuring that these tax privileges actually result in green electricity.


There’s another benefit to expanding the pool of renewable energy investors: It would help democratize, and thus build support for, these new energy sources. Today, all American taxpayers fund renewable energy subsidies, but only a deep-pocketed few can cash in on the tax benefits. Publicly traded master limited partnerships and REITs would empower all Americans to invest and have a stake in the transition to cleaner energy.


Renewable energy has come a long way since the 1970s energy crisis but much work remains. We must complement continued technological innovation with critical financial innovation — to level the playing field, incentivize growth, reduce subsidies and democratize America’s energy future.


Felix Mormann is a fellow, and Dan Reicher is the executive director, both at Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.