President Biden Visits Westby, Wisconsin, Announces $7.3 Billion for Clean, Affordable, Reliable Electricity for Rural America; The Largest Investment in Rural Electrification Since the New Deal
Today, USDA announced that 16 rural electric cooperatives are being selected to receive up to $7.3 billion in clean energy financing that will deliver clean, more affordable and more resilient electricity to approximately 5 million rural co-op members representing 20 percent of rural households, farms, businesses and schools. These 16 cooperatives will benefit rural residents across 23 states, serving farmers, small businesses, and rural communities in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
These first 16 co-ops will leverage $7.3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act into a total investment of more than $29 billion in rural communities across the nation. Thanks to the New ERA program, co-ops will build or purchase over 10 gigawatts of clean energy and make enabling investments in areas including transmission, substation upgrades, and distributed energy resource management software that will lower energy costs for rural Americans and enhance grid performance, resiliency, and reliability.
This financing will reduce electricity bills for rural families and businesses, who for too long have faced higher energy costs than the rest of the country due to the challenges of providing electricity in rural and remote areas. The New ERA program is helping rural cooperatives overcome barriers to upgrading infrastructure and investing in newer, lower cost electricity projects.
These New ERA investments will support more than 4,500 permanent jobs and over 16,000 construction jobs. They will also prevent at least 43.7 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually, equivalent to removing pollution from more than 10 million gas-powered cars every year.
In Wisconsin, Dairyland Power Cooperative is receiving the first New ERA award of nearly $573 million, which they will leverage for a total project investment of $2.1 billion. Dairyland plans to procure 1,080 megawatts of renewable energy through eight wind and solar power purchase agreements, four solar installations, and four wind power installations across rural portions of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. Dairyland estimates that electric rates for their members will be 42% lower over 10 years than they would have been without New ERA funding.
President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda is Lowering Costs, Making the Largest Investment in Rural Electrification Since the New Deal