THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION came through with tax guidance on Friday that may help reduce the price of power in the state’s upcoming offshore wind procurement, but it will probably have people in Barnstable scratching their heads.

The new guidance expands eligibility for a bonus that would increase the investment tax credit for eligible offshore wind projects from 30 percent to 40 percent. Since each project represents an investment of billions of dollars, the new guidance and the 10 percentage-point boost could have a significant impact on a selected project’s overall cost and its ultimate electricity price.

The guidance was issued in the nick of time. The Healey administration originally planned to accept bids for its next procurement on January 31, but put off action until Wednesday in the hope that the Biden administration would issue the favorable guidance. Offshore wind developers now have five days to put the finishing touches on their bids.

Previously, the bonus investment tax credit was only available to projects in historical energy communities – those where a coal-fired electric generating unit was closed after 2009, those where significant employment or local tax revenues came from fossil fuels, and those located at brownfield sites. Under those definitions, Brayton Point in Somerset would have qualified since that was previously the site of one of New England’s biggest coal-fired power plants.

The new guidance offers two new ways for offshore wind projects to qualify for the bonus tax credit. One would come if equipment for monitoring an offshore wind farm is located in an eligible port, which presumably would include New Bedford, Somerset, and perhaps Salem. The other would grant “energy community status” to communities that host “land-based power conditioning equipment.”

The latter reference would appear to apply to communities that serve as interconnection points between offshore wind farms and onshore electric substations. Barnstable, where power cables from Vineyard 1 come ashore and where other wind farms hope to bring their power ashore, would seem to be an energy community under the new guidance. One offshore wind developer said Barnstable would be considered an energy community under the guidance even though the vacation community is a far cry from Brayton Point in Somerset.

State officials had no immediate comment on the details of the new guidance, saying lawyers needed more time to review the information.