In 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — including around $60 billion for energy infrastructure such as transmission lines, electric vehicle (EV) charging, building weatherization and demonstration projects for new technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture and nuclear energy. This latest effort builds on the major investments already made in 2020 for clean energy innovation — spearheaded by Sens. Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Manchin (D-W.Va.) on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee.
All of that funding is sorely needed to improve the resilience of our nation’s critical energy infrastructure and to bolster American competitiveness in the global competition to be a clean energy superpower.
But now, Congress risks wasting the full potential of the infrastructure bill investments if they fail to follow up by passing the Build Back Better (BBB) Act. Why? Because the infrastructure package only addresses half of the clean energy market. It invests in developing and driving down the initial costs of emerging clean technologies and pilot projects, but it does nothing to build the commercial demand to get them to scale in the time it’s needed most.
To solve climate change, we need an array of affordable clean energy technologies. If they are unaffordable and unavailable for use widely, the U.S. will not decarbonize fast enough. Without the follow-on investments in the Build Back Better Act, Congress will be, at best, hamstringing the large down payment they just made in the infrastructure package and, at worst, leading these promising investments to a dead end.
To bring any new energy technology to scale, concepts must be proved viable in laboratories across America. From there, promising technologies are further developed and demonstrated at scale. But any technology that makes it to the demonstration stage must cross the commercialization “valley of death” — the capital-intensive, high-stakes phase where technologies go from small-scale projects to widespread commercial deployment. At this stage, many technologies fail because commercial demand just isn’t there. It could be because of a lack of policy support, or because incumbent competitor technologies, like fossil fuels, are just too subsidized, artificially cheap and dominant in the market.
This is where the Build Back Better Act can change the game. The bill includes $555 billion in long-term grants, incentives and tax credits — which will lower costs and accelerate demand for clean technologies.
Take for example EVs. The infrastructure package provides $7.5 billion for EV charging infrastructure. This investment recognizes the reality that the EV market will grow massively in the coming years — driven by historic consumer demand. But making these vehicles more affordable is key to wide-scale adoption — which is a core reason for the tax credits included in the Build Back Better Act.
EV and electric car battery storage markets will …….
