Last Updated June 29, 2020
Program Overview
Category:
Financial Incentive
State:
West Virginia
Incentive Type:
Property Tax Incentive
Administrator:
West Virginia Division of Energy
Start Date:
7/2001
Expiration Date:
N/A
Web Site:
N/A
Applicable Sectors:
N/A
Eligible Renewable/Other Technologies:
N/A
Summary
For the purposes of property tax assessment, utility-owned wind projects are considered to have a value equal to their salvage value, with certain limitations. This incentive effectively lowers the property tax base on utility-owned wind turbines from 100% of fair market value to as little as 24.95% of fair market value.* This results in an effective property tax rate on wind turbines that is 24.95% of the effective tax rate on most other types of newly constructed electricity-generating units.
*The law states that up to 79% of the total property may be assigned salvage value. Salvage value of a pollution control facility, of which a wind turbine is considered for assessment purposes, is 5%. Therefore, if 79% of the property is valued at 5% (salvage value), and the remaining 21% of the property is valued at 100%, the effective value for property tax purposes is 24.95%.