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Inflation Reduction Act Energy Communities

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) became law on August 8, 2022. Under the law, new qualifying renewable and/or carbon-free electricity generation projects constructed in certain areas of the US, called energy communities, are eligible for bonus worth an additional 10% to the value of the production tax credit or a 10 percentage point increase in the value of the investment tax credit. The IRA does not explicitly map or list these specific communities. Instead, eligible communities are defined by a series of qualifications: <ol> <li>a brownfield site,</li> <li>a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or non-metropolitan statistical area with either (a) 0.17% or greater employment or (b) 25% or greater local tax revenues related to the extraction, processing, transport, or storage of coal, oil, or natural gas; and an unemployment rate at or above the national average for the previous year, or</li> <li>a census tract containing or adjacent to (a) a coal mine closed after December 31, 1999 or (b) a coal-fired electric generating unit retired after December 31, 2009.</li> </ol> These maps and data layers contain GIS data for coal mines, coal-fired power plants, fossil energy related employment, and brownfield sites. Each record represents a point, tract or metropolitan statistical area and non-metropolitan statistical area with attributes including plant type, operating information, GEOID, etc. The input data used includes: <ol> <li>Brownfields – Source: <a href="https://www.epa.gov/frs/geospatial-data-download-service">EPA</a>. No analysis was performed on this data layer. However, tract polygon layers have a column denoting brownfield presence (0 for no brownfield site, 1 if the tract contains a brownfield somewhere within the polygon).</li> <li>Eligible Employment MSAs (“Final_Employment_Qualifying_MSAs”) – Source: US Census <a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html">County Business Patterns</a>. MSAs and non-MSA regions with employment over 0.17% in the fossil fuel industry (defined here as NAICS codes 211, 2121, 213, 23712, 324, 4247, and 486) and unemployment greater than or equal to 3.9% (the average national unemployment rate in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).</li> </ol> --Possibly Eligible MSAs (“FossilFuel_Employment_Qualifying_MSAs”) are MSA and non-MSA regions that meet or exceed the 0.17% employment in the fossil fuel industry threshold but do not exceed the unemployment threshold. --Relevant columns include:         a) SUM_nhgis0: Total employment in 2020.         b) SUM_nhgis1: Total unemployment in 2020.         c) P_Unemp: Percent unemployment in 2020.         d) Q_Unemp: Boolean column indicating if the MSA or non-MSA’s unemployment rate is at or above the national average of 3.9%.         e) FF_Qual: Boolean column indicating if the MSA or non-MSA had employment in the fossil fuel industry at or above 0.17% in the past 11 years.         f) final_Qual: Boolean column indicating if an MSA or non-MSA qualifies for both unemployment rate and fossil fuel employment under the IRA. <ol> <li>Retired Power Plants – Source: EIA via <a href="https://hifld-geoplatform.opendata.arcgis.com/maps/ee0263bd105d41599be22d46107341c3/about">HFLID</a>. Qualifying power plants were selected by use of coal in at least one generator, and if they were retired (RET_DATE) on or after January 1, 2010. This data goes through December 2021.</li> </ol> --Adjacent tract data was derived by Cecelia Isaac using ESRI ArcGIS Pro. <ol> <li>Abandoned Coal Mines – Source: <a href="https://www.msha.gov/mine-data-retrieval-system">MSHA</a>. Mines labeled “Abandoned”, “Abandoned and Sealed” or “NonProducing” between January 1, 2000 and September 2022.</li> </ol> --Adjacent tract data was derived by Cecelia Isaac using ESRI ArcGIS Pro. 5) US State Borders– Source: <a href="https://data2.nhgis.org/main">IPUMS NHGIS</a>.   Also included here are polygon shapefiles for Onshore <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/5021146#.Y0XbRnbMK39">Wind and Solar Candidate Project Areas</a> from <a href="https://repeatproject.org/">Princeton REPEAT</a>. These files have been updated to include columns related to the energy communities. New columns include: <ol> <li>CoalPlantTract: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within a tract that qualifies because of a retired coal plant.</li> <li>CoalMineTract: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within a tract that qualifies because of a closed coal mine.</li> <li>FossilFuelEmp: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within an MSA or non-MSA with greater than or equal to 0.17% employment in the fossil fuel industry.</li> <li>UnempQualification: Boolean column indicating if the CPA is within an MSA or non-MSA with greater than or equal to 0.17% employment in the fossil fuel industry.</li> <li>MSA_non_to: The code of the MSA or non-MSA area that contains the CPA.</li> <li>P_Unemp: The percent unemployment of the MSA or non-MSA that contains the CPA in 2021.</li> </ol>

ShareScore

40/100

Overall dataset sharing score

Score breakdown

These five areas show where the dataset supports — or may limit — practical reuse.

Stewardship: 8
Harmonization: 4
Access: 16
Reuse readiness: 8
Engagement: 4

Topics

Inflation Reduction Act IRA Energy Communities