Federal Support Opportunities to Remediate and Redevelop Energy Assets: Wide-Ranging Initiatives to Drive Investment Opportunities in Energy Communities

The Department of Energy is working diligently to drive new investments in energy communities to support their economic revitalization, strengthen American supply chains, and help ensure coal, oil, and gas workers benefit from the new clean energy economy. With assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Policy, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory, published a report titled “Federal Support Opportunities to Remediate and Redevelop Energy Assets,” which outlines how federal resources can be utilized to drive redevelopment and reinvestment opportunities in fossil energy communities across America. 

With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), communities, site owners, and developers can now access never-before-available loan guarantees to redevelop and repurpose legacy energy assets. There are thousands of retired and operating energy sites in communities throughout the United States waiting to be cleaned up and modernized. Together with other existing federal grants and tax credits, the newly created Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) loan guarantees from the Department of Energy (DOE) can catalyze capital investment in these sites, empowering local communities and reducing carbon pollution. 

Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda, the IRA makes available up to $5 billion in EIR credit subsidy to support up to $250 billion in loan authority, which can aid in the remediation, repurposing, and redevelopment of eligible energy infrastructure sites.  EIR loan guarantees complement a suite of other federal programs that support energy infrastructure redevelopment. Brownfields Grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) support assessment and cleanup of sites where known or unknown contamination hinders redevelopment. Clean energy tax credits and the IRA Energy Community Tax Credit Bonus also support clean energy development at brownfield sites and defined regions with strong historical ties to fossil fuels. Working in tandem, these federal programs can unlock reinvestment in these communities and strengthen their position in the changing energy economy. 

Read the full report here. Additionally, explore which coal power plants that have been closed or set-to-retire that are relevant for potential redevelopment opportunities with our Coal Redevelopment Opportunities Mapping Tool found here. Finally, to view a searchable mapping tool that helps identify areas that may be eligible for the energy community bonus tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act, click here.