Advanced Energy Project Credit & National Science Foundation Programming

Over the past month, World Business Chicago’s Public Sector Investment Strategy (PSIS) team actively engaged in several impactful initiatives. The team attended programming hosted by the National Science Foundation (NSF), where they shared insights and gathered valuable information to further our mission. They provided crucial updates about the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, ensuring stakeholders are well-informed about these opportunities. Additionally, the PSIS team conducted thorough research on federal and state incentives for foreign direct investment, which they shared with SelectUSA participants to attract more international business to Chicago. Emily Souza Rutkowski, Vice President, World Business Chicago, presented to the Chicagoland Opportunity Zone Consortium about various IRA tax credits, highlighting available incentives such as the Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) program.

This monthly PSIS-centric edition of our Business Pulse newsletter is intended to provide critical insights and updates on funding opportunities, tax credits, and incentives that can propel your organization or startup toward successful investment and growth.

Funding Opportunity Highlight

Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) Program

• The Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C) Program is a limited-opportunity tax credit program led by the Department of Energy (DOE). Up to $6 billion is available, including $2.5 billion allocated for investments in energy communities. Qualified investments include:
• This credit provides a 6 percent base credit for qualified investments, with up to 30 percent possible if various bonuses are met (e.g. prevailing age, apprenticeship, energy community requirements).
• Applicants must submit a concept paper through the DOE portal. Templates for concept papers are available on the DOE website.

Recent Highlights

• The NSF recently hosted the Midwest regional roadshow for the Regional Innovation Engines program. Awardees from North Dakota and Colorado shared lessons from their award-winning proposals related to coalition building, local government support, and metrics identification and collection. Attendees also participated in small group discussions related to regional competitive advantages, areas for growth, and partnership building.
• The PSIS team attended the recent NSF Convergence Accelerator Midwest Regional Expansion where we learned that the NSF Convergence Accelerator program is looking to fund diverse teams with representation across organization types, sectors, expertise, etc. to work in a product-focused manner to address key societal, and regional challenges. The NSF is launching a new regional approach for this program by creating ten regions. Each region will have a Regional Anchor, acting as an extension of the NSF, which will be responsible for carrying out Convergence Accelerator activities. NSF will open applications to be the Regional Anchor in Summer 2024 and plan to make selections in Fall 2024.

May 29, 2024, NSF Convergence Accelerator

Looking Forward

• The second round of NSF Regional Innovation Engines is open, with mandatory Letters of Intent due on June 18, 2024. This program is aimed at building innovation ecosystems across the U.S. This round of funding is an open competition with no prerequisite of having been funded by NSF programs previously. We’re looking forward to strong submissions from across the region!

Interested in discussing or learning more about funding opportunities, or want to discover how we may be able to help you? Send an email to the PSIS team at psis@worldbusinesschicago.com