Credit for holders of Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs)

CREBs are used to finance renewable energy projects by certain entities - primarily in the public sector. They provide rural electric cooperatives and municipal electric utilities the equivalent of an interest-free loan for financing qualified energy projects. CREBs can be used to finance facilities that generate electricity from the following resources: wind; closed-loop biomass; open-loop biomass; geothermal; small irrigation; hydropower; landfill gas; marine renewable; and trash combustion facilities. Environmental Protection Act 2005 established the CREBs tax credit, initially authorizing issuance of up to USD800 million in CREBs tax credit bonds. Following the enactment of the federal Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, the IRS made an additional USD400 million in old CREBs financing available for 2008 through Notice 2007-26. These "old" CREBS (26 U.S.C. 54) are distinct from "new"CREBs created by the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, which allocated USD800 million for "new CREBs" (26 U.S.C. 54C). The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 authorizes an additional USD1.6 billion of new CREBs (for a total new CREB allocation of uSD2.4 billion). The "old CREBs" sunset date was extended in EIA 2008 to 31 December 2009. 

A solicitation (IRS Announcement 2010-54) was issued in September 2010 for roughly $191 million in unallocated CREB bond volume available only to electric cooperatives. On March 5, 2015 another solicitation was announced (IRS Announcement 2015-12) opening $1.4 billion in remaning volume for New CREBs (§54C(a)). The new volume consists of CREB funds forfietted under previous allocations. 

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