Hurricane Helene made clear North Carolina needs infrastructure that is secure against more frequent extreme weather events like the microgrids that keeps power on during outages. North Carolina is well-positioned to expand such resilient clean energy infrastructure—and the jobs that come with it—but doing so will require that recent legislative gains remain in place.
As the leader of a financial institution focused on supporting clean energy projects, I work with smart, pragmatic organizations across the state to make sure North Carolinians are reaping maximum benefits of this growing economic sector. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has been providing a tremendous boost to that effort since being signed into law in 2022. As a result, communities across the state are beginning to receive cleaner, more resilient energy, seeing accelerated job growth, and benefiting from an influx of dollars into local economies.
North Carolina had more than 100,000 clean energy jobs in 2023, and that number is growing as the clean energy sector and demand for workers keeps growing. Hundreds of thousands of jobs for trained electricians are predicted over the next decade, positions that don’t require a college degree and allow people in their 20s to earn family-supporting incomes.
This clean energy economic boom didn’t happen by accident. Years of bipartisan, pragmatic policy in North Carolina has placed us at the forefront for business sectors ranging from efficiency to electric-powered transportation. The economic impact in the state—tallied to $1.2 billion in clean energy projects in 2022 alone—is set to accelerate with the massive tailwind of investment dollars coming from the federal level.
The IRA provided North Carolina businesses with powerful new tools to build on our state’s head start, supercharging the development of clean energy. Among the most important changes is how the IRA revamped the tax code to add new routes for clean energy investment.
The tax incentives for organizations to invest start at 30 percent of the cost of adding solar and batteries to their buildings, warehouses, farms, and sanctuaries. If the investments are made in distressed areas (like places where jobs have been hollowed out by coal plant closures or impacted by environmental damage), they get another 10 percent covered. If they agree to build their facilities with American-made products and steel, they get another 10 percent.
These stacked incentives are already driving investment in North Carolina. Importantly, the IRA makes these incentives available to tax-exempt entities for the first time, in the form of a refundable tax credit. As a result, non-profits, churches, and municipalities have an easier path to install solar power and energy storage resilience that had previously been financially out of reach.
More benefits are coming: in 2025, two more programs from the IRA will be available to homes in the state, the Home Energy Efficiency Rebates and the Solar for All. Together, these programs will bring over $300 million in solar investments to the state, on top of the IRA-authorized Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is fueling development of accessible, affordable consumer financing for home improvements and electric transportation as well as larger projects like microgrids. These incentives will drive significant investments in the state. They will bring crucial co-benefits like reduced asthma triggers when gas-powered heating is replaced by electric heat pumps, and making utility bills more affordable for households. The IRA also requires that these investments are spread equitably to communities that often have been left behind in economic expansion, allowing for a more just energy transition. This is a lot of good news for North Carolina.
The bad news is that with election year politics at play, some politicians are eager to roll back the IRA and eliminate the economic growth and household benefits that it is driving. Amidst the calls for repeal, even members of Congress who opposed the legislation have called for the clean energy tax credits to be saved, underscoring that their impact and appeal.
My sincere hope is that as North Carolinians head to the ballot box, they consider the IRA’s positive contributions to our state and for the nation. Rescinding the IRA would drop the influx of federal capital to $0, would divest from the assured jobs growth, and would reduce resiliency gains to weather the next hurricane. Together, we are charting a path towards an economy powered by high-paying clean energy jobs—let’s keep the progress moving forward.