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USDA Grant to Utah Organization Helps Farms and Small Businesses Conserve Energy and Save Costs

Name
Jamie Welch Jaro
City
Salt Lake City
Release Date

USDA Rural Development State Director Dave Conine today announced a grant awarded to one Utah organization to help rural small businesses and agricultural producers across rural Utah conserve energy and develop renewable energy systems. The grant is made possible through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which helps farms and small businesses right-size their energy systems and helps with the installation costs for renewable energy equipment.

"One of USDA’s chief efforts in climate mitigation has been helping rural small businesses and agricultural producers make the move to renewable energy and energy efficiency systems," Conine said. "Utahns are showing increasing interest in lowering their energy bills by being more energy efficient and switching to renewable energy, and investments such as this one make more of these options available"

Panoramaland Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D), based out of Richfield, Utah, is being selected to receive an energy audit grant of $80,347 to provide 26 agricultural producers and rural small businesses throughout Utah with individualized assessments for improving energy use. Twenty-six recipients were selected for USDA funding under today’s announcement.

REAP provides grants and loan guarantees for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements, grants for energy audits, and grants for renewable energy planning and development to service providers who work with farmers and rural small businesses. Funding is contingent upon the recipient meeting the terms of the grant agreement.

Thanks to USDA investments in renewable energy projects of all sizes, rural Americans are saving more than 10.4 billion kWh – enough energy to power more than 959,000 American homes annually. USDA has invested $38 billion in electric loans and more than $1 billion for smart grid technologies since 2009, helping build more than 183,000 miles of transmission and distribution lines serving approximately 5 million rural customers annually. Today, more than 2,200 USDA wind and solar renewable electricity generation projects power more than 130,000 homes annually.

Since 2009, USDA Rural Development (#USDARDImage removed.) has invested $11 billion to start or expand 103,000 rural businesses; helped 1.1 million rural residents buy homes; funded nearly 7,000 community facilities such as schools, public safety and health care facilities; financed 180,000 miles of electric transmission and distribution lines; and helped bring high-speed Internet access to nearly 6 million rural residents and businesses. For more information, visit www.usda.gov/results.