USDA hands out $6 billion to electric cooperatives for development of clean energy projects

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Biden administration on Friday handed out more than $6 billion in clean energy grants to rural electric cooperatives, none involved any such projects or cooperatives in Oklahoma.

The grants and loans, according to the announcement were “awarded to help rural communities build renewable energy projects that will lower greenhouse gas emissions and which have the potential to reduce electricity costs while creating jobs.” The money is to be used primarilly to build new wind, solar and battery facilities. include hydropower and nuclear.

The vast majority of the funding — about $5.5 billion — will go exclusively to nonprofit member-owned electric cooperatives in rural communities through the USDA’s Empowering Rural America (New ERA) program. Another $565 million in partially forgivable loans will go to any type of company that promises to bring affordable clean power to rural communities through the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program.

Among some of the recipients was Chickasaw Electric Cooperative in Mississippi and Tennessee. While it might have the name of the Chickasaw tribe headquartered in Oklahoma, it is a cooperative that will receive $35 million to obtain electricity from a solar plant and more from a battery energy storage system.

The Flint Hills Rural Electric Cooperative Association in Kansas received $500,000 to build a 1-megawatt solar facility to produce clean, renewable energy equivalent to powering nearly 200 homes a year. The USDA proclaimed it will reduce climate pollution by nearly 2,300 tons each year, which is the equivalent to over 480 gasoline-powered cars annually.

A rural New Mexico operation, the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative received $231 million to construct 104 megawatts of clean, renewable energy from hydrogen and solar facilities with battery energy storage systems in rural New Mexico. This will power nearly 25,000 homes each year.

These projects will reduce climate pollution by nearly 98,000 tons each year. The initiative will reduce greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to over 20,700 gasoline-powered cars annually.