Enigin Update - U.S. Agricultural and Rural Small Businesses Energy Efficiency Funding
U.S. AGRICULTURE Secretary Tom Vilsack yesterday announced loans and grants for agricultural producers and rural small businesses to implement renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.
The funding is provided through USDA Rural Development's Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).
"Stable energy costs create an environment for job growth in rural America," Vilsack said. "The Obama Administration is helping agricultural producers and business owners reduce their energy costs and consumption – and by doing so is helping preserve our natural resources, protect the environment and strengthen the bottom line for businesses, ranchers and farm operations."
Collectively, REAP-funded projects announced yesterday and earlier by USDA are expected to lower energy usage by 2 billion kilowatts and prevent nearly 2 million metric tons of emissions from being released into the environment. With yesterday’s announcement concluding the REAP awards cycle for 2011.
REAP, authorised through the 2008 Farm Bill, provides loans and grants for farmers, ranchers and rural small business owners to purchase and install renewable energy systems and make energy-efficiency improvements. These U.S. federal dollars are leveraged with other funding sources for the projects.
Tonsager said that in Fiscal Year 2011, USDA Rural Development provided through the REAP programme a total of $23.2 million for energy efficiency projects, $20.9 million for biodigesters, $20.3 million for solar energy projects, $8.2 million for hydroelectric systems, $7 million for biomass energy projects, $4.28 million for flexible fuel pump projects, $3.9 million for wind energy projects, $1.4 million for geothermal installations.
With this latest announcement, USDA Rural Development is funding more than 280 projects to help reduce energy costs. In all, the department funded more than 1,100 energy efficiency projects in fiscal year 2011.
Enigin Distributors can help agriculture and rural businesses to improve their energy efficiency by using technology from Enigin and their EnergyMaps programme - saving substantially on energy, costs and emissions.
Picture of US Farm by Nicholas T reproduced under CCL.
