The Agriculture Department will provide more than a quarter-billion dollars of low-interest loans for five clean energy projects from Kentucky to Alaska, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday. With the announcement, the USDA has awarded half of the $1 billion available through its Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program.
In addition, Vilsack said, nearly $100 million in grants and loans would go to 473 projects in 39 states and Puerto Rico through the Rural Energy for America Program, which helps farmers and small businesses expand the use of renewable energy or improve their energy efficiency.
Separately, the Federal Communications Commission said it would vote on July 18 on allowing schools and libraries to use E-Rate funding to loan out Wi-Fi hotspots in rural and urban areas. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said the proposal would “help close the homework gap” facing students from households that cannot afford internet service. Created in 1996, the E-Rate program helps schools and libraries secure affordable internet service.
The largest of the new PACE loans, $100 million each, will go to two rural electric cooperatives in Alaska: the Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA), based in Fairbanks, in central Alaska, and the Alaska Electric and Energy Cooperative, based in Homer, on the Kenai Peninsula.
GVEA plans to build a 46-megawatt battery storage system in Fairbanks, upgrade its Nenana substation, and connect a solar farm to the substation. The project was expected to result in more stable and affordable electric rates while reducing reliance on fossil fuels, said the cooperative. GVEA serves 100,000 residents in interior Alaska and has nearly 3,300 miles of transmission and distribution lines.
The USDA will forgive 60 percent of the loan to GVEA, said the cooperative, because Doyon Limited, an Alaska Native corporation, supported the project. Doyon said that more than a quarter of its 20,500 shareholder families live in the GVEA service area. “This is an exciting project for Doyon, as it directly benefits our shareholder families and homes,” said Tanya Kaquatosh, Doyon senior vice president.
Alaska Electric, a subsidiary of the Homer Electric Association, will build a 45-megawatt battery storage system next to its Soldotna substation. Homer Electric has 24,330 members in a service area covering 3,000 square miles of the western and southern Kenai Peninsula.
The other PACE loans were $55.2 million to Sierra Southwest Cooperative Services of Benson, Arizona, to build three battery storage projects totaling 35 megawatts; $16.6 million to Lock 11 Hydro Partners to build a 3-megawatt hydroelectric plant on the Kentucky River in eastern Kentucky; and $3.6 million to Bluestem Energy Solutions to build a 12-acre, 2-megawatt community solar project with the city electric utility in Madison, Nebraska.
“We’re just waiting for the PACE funding for this project to become economically feasible,” said David Kinloch of Appalachian Hydro Associates, speaking of the Kentucky hydropower project.