Indeed, of the nearly 6.2 GW of newly installed wind energy projects that elected the cash grant incentive, the LBNL analysts discount nearly 60% of them as projects for which the grant may not have been essential for completion (e.g. projects were already completed or would have otherwise been able to utilize the production taxcredit, or PTC, to help finance the projects).
In 1997 a conviction that companies paid out too much to shareholders, instead of investing in expansion, caused Gordon Brown, then the British finance minister, to scrap the taxcredit on dividends, a change that took money away from occupational-pension funds.
But Bloomberg New Energy Finance said the damage from the uncertainty around whether the taxcredit would be extended has already slammed the industry and the boom of 2012 is unlikely to be repeated this year.