USDA announces grants for underutilized renewable technology

The USDA will offer $144 million in grants to help farmers install under-utilized renewable energy technology, such as small-scale windmills, announced Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday. The clean energy equipment could reduce costs and increase income, said the USDA.

“These investments will create long-lasting economic benefits for their families, businesses, and communities for years to come,” said Vilsack, who spoke at the Distributed Wind Energy Association annual conference.

With the RAISE initiative — Rural and Agricultural Income and Save from Renewable Energy — the USDA has an initial goal of helping 400 farmers deploy smaller-scale wind projects. Also eligible for funding are small-scale hydropower, geothermal, biomass-based, and other clean energy applications.

In addition, the Energy Department announced $4 million in related funding. Some $2.5 million would support testing, certification and commercialization of distributed wind technologies and $1.5 million for outreach and development of business models using the technology. Distributed wind can range from a single turbine to meet a farm’s electric needs to several turbines across several farms to generate electricity for sale onto the local grid.