A Year of the IRA in Texas: More Solar, Storage, Jobs, and Investment

Texas seems to beat three records on a weekly or even daily basis this summer, regularly setting highs in temperatures, electricity demand, and solar generation. 

We are, in other words, Ground Zero for the problems that the Inflation Reduction Act seeks to solve and the benefits it seeks to create.

A year ago, Congress passed and the President signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides at least $350 billion — and perhaps up to $1 trillion or more — in funding to increase electric reliability while lowering bills and emissions of all kinds, including greenhouse gasses.

Among the most tangible impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act: solar tax credits that are bigger and easier to monetize, and first-ever tax credits for standalone storage (batteries used to only get a tax credit if co-located with solar).

For this and other reasons, the IRA is probably the most consequential pollution-reduction legislation since the Clean Air Act of 1970. But as one of my favorite climate writers David Roberts likes to say, it’s actually industrial policy masquerading as climate policy. 

That’s because almost all of the tax credits are tied to domestic manufacturing. If it’s not made in America, you can’t get the full credit — or, in some cases, any credit at all. Because of this, manufacturers have scrambled to establish or expand American manufacturing. 

Over the past year, the organization Climate Power has been counting IRA-related manufacturing and economic development announcements across the country: the tally currently stands at $230 billion in new investment and more than 170,000 new jobs. 

In Texas, the IRA has spun off at least 14 projects representing 8,843 new jobs and $11.2 billion in investments…