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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary walks into a planned solar site in Pahrump. . .
While you figure out a punchline, clean energy proponents in rural Kentucky and Nevada are laughing all the way to the bank.
The Biden-Harris Administration has announced $140 million for clean energy projects in rural Nevada and Kentucky via the USDA’s Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program, funded by the ever-familiar Inflation Reduction Act. In May 2023, USDA made $1 billion available through PACE to fund new clean energy projects and energy storage in rural America, providing low-interest loans with up to 60% loan forgiveness to renewable energy developers, rural electric cooperatives, and other rural energy providers for renewable energy storage and projects that use wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass.
USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small made the announcement in Pahrump, an area prone to wildfires and outages, where the Valley Electric Association plans to use an $80.3 million investment to install a 37 megawatt (MW) solar generation and storage system serving Pahrump and the Fish Lake Valley region. Valley Electric serves communities participating in the Rural Partners Network (RPN), a USDA-led collaboration between federal, state, and local partners to help underserved communities access federal funding. Launched in April 2022 and expanded in November 2022, RPN is now active in 36 community networks in 10 states and Puerto Rico.
The rest of the $140M in PACE funding mentioned in the headline is headed to Kentucky to support four projects there, including three new hydroelectric plants:
- Bluestem Energy Solutions TEC1 LLC plans to use about $6.6 million to build a solar power facility in Allen County that will produce 5 MW of renewable energy.
- Lock 9 Hydro Partners LLC plans to use a roughly $19.3 million investment to build a run-of-river hydroelectric plant on the Kentucky River generating 3 MW of renewable energy for Jessamine County.
- Lock 10 Hydro Partners LLC plans to use about $18.9 million to build a run-of-river hydroelectric plant on the Kentucky River generating 3 MW of renewable energy for Madison County.
- Lock 13 Hydro Partners LLC plans to use an approximately $17.7 million investment to build a run-of-river hydroelectric plant on the Kentucky River generating 3 MW of renewable energy for Lee County (also an RPN community).
“Rural people deserve continued energy opportunities as demand for clean energy increases,” Deputy Secretary Torres Small said. “The Biden-Harris Administration is working to make sure efforts to tackle climate change also help grow the local economy. These USDA investments will lower costs for Americans and create good-paying jobs in rural communities for years to come.”
Renewable resources are a relatively small part of Kentucky’s energy mix, and hydropower currently accounts for nearly all of the state’s renewables. In 2022, 11 hydroelectric dams in Kentucky produced about 6% of the state’s total electricity net generation. Solar accounted for .2% in 2022.
While renewable development in Kentucky has been a bit slower than some neighboring states, Nevada has been busy since the IRA became law a little more than two years ago. Nevada’s 2nd congressional district, represented by Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, is among the most active for new clean development, attracting more than $6.6 billion and creating upwards of 5.000 jobs.
