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Biden, Vilsack announce green energy grants to rural cooperatives

Electric cooperatives in 23 states are getting more than 7.3 billion dollars in clean energy grants.

President Biden and Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack are announcing the details at one of the Dairyland Power Cooperative project sites near Westby, Wisconsin Thursday. 

Vilsack says Dairyland is receiving 573 million dollars, with 471 million in grants and 102 million in loans to finance eight power purchase agreements. “Four solar installations, four wind power installations across their service territory in Wisconsin. This is an opportunity over the next ten years to lower the cost of electricity for the customers of Dairyland Cooperative by nearly 42%.”

Vilsack says the Empowering Rural America program funded by the Inflation Reduction Act is just part of the two-billion-dollar project, which includes Dairyland Power entering a community benefit plan. “These benefit plans are designed to provide direct assistance and help to farmers who will benefit from this clean energy as well as connecting to employment opportunities. You’ll see the opportunity for apprenticeships and training programs in order to build the workforce of the future.”

Vilsack says the program will provide more than 10 gigawatts of clean energy to cooperatives and is the largest federal investment in rural electrification since President Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s.

The first round of selectees and the states they serve are as follows:

• Allegheny Electric Cooperative Inc., Pennsylvania and New Jersey

• Arizona Electric Power Cooperative, Inc., Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico

• Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota

• Buckeye Power, Inc., Ohio

• CORE Electric Cooperative, Colorado

• Dairyland Power Cooperative, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota

• East Kentucky Power Cooperative, Kentucky

• Golden Valley Electric Association, Alaska

• Great River Energy, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin

• Hoosier Energy, Indiana and Michigan

• Minnkota Power Cooperative, North Dakota and Minnesota

• San Miguel Electric Cooperative Inc., Texas

• Seminole Electric Cooperative, Inc., Florida

• Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc., Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Wyoming

• United Power, Colorado

• Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative, Michigan