Several U.S. states are looking to attract European clean energy and clean technology companies to invest in American production and operations as they will benefit from the clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Over the past months, governors from Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, and Ohio have traveled to Europe to pitch their respective states as prime investment locations, the Financial Times reports. Some were also seen at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said after her European mission, “We’re bringing supply chains home and putting the world on notice that Michigan is the place to invest!
The IRA has nearly $370 billion in climate and clean energy provisions, including investment and production credits for solar, wind, storage, critical minerals, funding for energy research, and credits for clean energy technology manufacturing such as wind turbines and solar panels.
European Union officials, for their part, are concerned that the IRA—along with its incentives and tax breaks—is a “protectionist” measure from America that puts European business at a disadvantage if the EU doesn’t come up soon with its own legislation or at least with easing some rules regarding state aid.
“Our concerns are the discriminatory measures in [the] U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which is discriminating against EU companies,” Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commissioner for Trade, told CNBC in Davos.
“We think we should be addressing the climate change and green transition jointly, building transatlantic value chains, not breaking them apart.”
Since the IRA was passed into law, BMW has announced a $1.7 billion investment in its United States operations, including $1 billion to prepare for the production of electric vehicles at Plant Spartanburg, and $700 million to build a new high-voltage battery assembly facility in nearby Woodruff, S.C.
FREYR Battery of Norway announced in November plans to build a U.S. Gigafactory in Georgia.
“Expanding into the U.S. has been a foundational aspect of FREYR’s long-term strategy from our inception, and with the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, we expect U.S. demand for ESS, passenger EV and other electric mobility applications to grow rapidly over the next decade,” said FREYR’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Tom Einar Jensen.
Jensen told FT that Europe needs to pass its own incentives package if it wants to stay competitive.
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By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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