Wind Production Tax Credit expiration cycles (2012-2014)
Congress repeatedly let the wind Production Tax Credit lapse and then renewed it, sometimes retroactively. Wind installations swung from 13 gigawatts in 2012 to just over 1 gigawatt in 2013 before partially recovering.
Developers bunched project starts around expected expiration dates, creating boom-bust installation cycles and whipsawing PPA offers.
The experience shaped how lenders, tax equity investors, and corporate buyers price policy risk into wind contracts, a playbook now being reactivated.
Wind PPA buyers and sellers are again pricing tax policy risk into contracts, and the earlier cycles explain why wind is moving faster than solar in the current index.
