2 January 2014

DOE awards clean-energy manufacturing tax credits to SSL manufacturers

Two solid-state lighting (SSL) manufacturers are among the 12 businesses that will receive clean-energy tax credits ranging from $700,000 to $30m each (totaling more than $150m collectively), the US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced.

Through Phase II of the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit (48C) program - initiated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) - the tax credits will go toward investments in domestic manufacturing equipment, helping to create thousands of jobs across the USA and increase the country’s competitiveness in the global clean-energy market, it is intended.

The DOE and the Treasury worked in partnership to develop, launch and award the funds for the program. The investment tax credit (of 30% for the manufacture of particular types of energy equipment) was made available to 183 domestic clean-energy manufacturing facilities during Phase I of the program, with Phase II awarding the balance that remained out of the $2.3bn in funding.

Supporting projects that must be placed in service by 2017, the credits cover domestic manufacturing of a wide range of renewable-energy and energy-efficiency products, from hydropower and wind energy to smart-grid technologies to fuel-efficient vehicles. The SSL awardees are:

• LED chip, lamp and lighting maker Cree Inc ($30m) will expand its manufacturing footprint (at its facilities in Durham, NC and Racine, WI), including the purchase, installation and proprietary modification of new machinery that will allow it to produce 304 million next-generation LED lighting systems (LED-based retrofit lamps and integral luminaires).

• Osram Sylvania Inc of Danvers, MA, USA ($1.6m) has developed energy-efficient, single-point LED systems for automotive low/high-beam projectors, reducing wattages by about 70%. The tax credit allows the expansion of production capacity.

Tags: SSL LEDs

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