EER’s work modeling the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), as a part of the REPEAT project, together with analyses from 8 other models, has been published in the paper “Emissions and energy impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act” in the journal Science.
The paper is an inter-model comparison of the energy and emission impacts of IRA, focusing on the law’s core energy and climate provisions. Key findings from the range of model results in the paper include:
- Economy-wide emissions may decline 43-48% by 2035 with IRA from 2005 levels, as compared to 27-35% reductions without the legislation.
- Clean energy deployment will accelerate significantly: while IRA increases all forms for low-emission generation, wind and solar particularly accelerate with capacity increasing up to four times the pace without IRA; electric vehicles are 30-82% of new vehicle sales in 2035.
- System-wide energy costs are $10-52 billion per year lower by 2035 with IRA, reducing energy spending by $73-370 per household.
- Abatement costs with IRA are likely much lower than the recent social cost of carbon estimates, even before accounting for improved air quality and other co-benefits.
Even with variation between models driven by the scope and complexity of IRA, the findings in this paper support that IRA is the most significant federal climate legislation to date.