Section 48E changed how compliance is measured. Empact is built for it.

Section 48E is the technology-neutral Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit (ITC) that replaced the legacy Section 48 ITC for projects beginning construction on or after January 1, 2025. Where Section 48 enumerated specific eligible technologies, Section 48E is open to any electricity-generating facility with net-zero or negative greenhouse gas emissions. Crucially, 48E also measures compliance at the Qualified Facility level rather than the project level.

A Qualified Facility is the unit of production the IRS uses to measure compliance under 48E, typically an individual generation unit such as a string inverter, wind turbine, or storage block. The IRS explicitly declined industry requests to allow project-wide aggregation. Each Qualified Facility's enhanced credit rate stands or falls on its own documentation, which means a compliance gap at one unit only affects that unit, not the whole project, but it also means each unit must be tracked and certified independently.

Three adders stack on top of the 48E base rate: Prevailing Wage and Apprenticeship (the 5x multiplier that takes the base from 6% to 30%), Domestic Content (an additional 10 percentage points), and Energy Community (another 10 percentage points). Together, a fully qualifying project can reach a 50% ITC, with additional adders available for projects serving low-income communities under Section 48E(h).

The ITC recapture period under Section 48E runs five years from the date each Qualified Facility is placed in service. PWA compliance must be maintained for any repair or alteration work performed during this window, and Domestic Content records must be preserved for the full period. Empact monitors compliance through the entire recapture window so issues that arise during operations and maintenance are caught early.

Section 48E applies to electricity-generating facilities that begin construction on or after January 1, 2025, and that have a net greenhouse gas emissions rate of zero or less. Solar, wind, storage, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear projects all qualify under the tech-neutral framework. Projects that began construction before January 1, 2025 generally remain under the legacy Section 48 framework.

No. A given project elects either the 48E Investment Tax Credit or the 45Y Clean Electricity Production Tax Credit, not both. The election is made facility by facility and depends on project economics, financing structure, and expected capacity factor. Empact's documentation supports either path so the election can be made on the strongest factual record.