Renewable Energy Production Incentive (REPI)

Summary

Note: Contact the program administrator to find out the current funding status of this program.

Established by the federal Energy Policy Act of 1992, the federal Renewable Energy Production Incentive (REPI) provides incentive payments for electricity generated and sold by new qualifying renewable energy facilities. Qualifying systems are eligible for annual incentive payments of 1.5¢ per kilowatt-hour (kWh) in 1993 dollars (indexed for inflation) for the first 10-year period of their operation, subject to the availability of annual appropriations in each federal fiscal year of operation. REPI was designed to complement the federal renewable energy production tax credit (PTC), which is available only to businesses that pay federal corporate taxes.

Qualifying systems must generate electricity using solar, wind, geothermal (with certain restrictions), biomass (excluding municipal solid waste), landfill gas, livestock methane, or ocean resources (including tidal, wave, current and thermal). The production payment applies only to the electricity sold to another entity. Eligible electric production facilities include not-for-profit electrical cooperatives, public utilities, state governments and political subdivisions thereof, commonwealths, territories and possessions of the United States, the District of Columbia, Indian tribal governments or political subdivisions thereof, and Native Corporations.

Payments may be made only for electricity generated from an eligible facility first used before October 1, 2016. Appropriations have been authorized for fiscal years 2006 through fiscal year 2026; however, program funding is determined each year as part of the U.S. Department of Energy budget process. If there are insufficient appropriations to make full payments for electricity production from all qualified systems for a federal fiscal year, 60% of the appropriated funds for the fiscal year will be assigned to facilities that use solar, wind, ocean, geothermal or closed-loop biomass technologies; and 40% of the appropriated funds for the fiscal year will be assigned to other eligible projects. Funds will be awarded on a pro rata basis, if necessary. In past years this has meant that actual incentive payments have corresponded to only a small fraction of the theoretical inflation adjusted incentive level of ~2 cents/kWh.