By Gus Block, Director of Marketing

In this era of government cutbacks, there’s welcome news about support that’s available for fuel cell-powered vehicles. In order to promote the adoption of energy-saving and greenhouse gas -reducing technologies in the US, the federal government offer tax credits that significantly offset the acquisition costs of both fuel cell and hydrogen refueling equipment. The Federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) covers a range of alternative energy projects, including fuel cells. For qualified “energy property” such as Nuvera’s PowerEdge fuel cell power packs, the ITC is equal to 30% of the cost, up to $3000/kW. This provides a huge savings opportunity for the acquisition costs associated with converting a forklift fleet from batteries or IC engines to fuel cells.

The 30% ITC for fuel cells is available through the end of 2016.  Through the end of 2011, a special’grant-in-lieu’ is available. This means that fuel cell purchases made this year can be offset with cash, not with a tax credit.

On top of the fuel cell tax credit, there’s also a $30,000 hydrogen infrastructure tax credit. This h2 infrastructure tax credit - available through 2014 - can be applied to hydrogen generation and fueling stations such as Nuvera’s PowerTap system.

The federal government isn’t the only source of grants, tax credits, and tax exemptions for hydrogen and fuel cell equipment. A number of states have special programs as well, and although these have diminished somewhat over the past 2 years, it’s worth checking out what’s on offer. One comprehensive source of information is Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Tax Incentives, published in July 2011 by EAPD Law and is available for download here. 

For more information on any of these programs, including information on application procedures, feel free to email me!

Related:

Handy ITC One-page guide

Tags: fuel cell, h2 infrastructure, ITC, tax incentive

This entry was posted on Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 8:20 am and is filed under Material Handling, PowerEdge, PowerTap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.