Much needed federal dollars could be headed towards small businesses across rural Eastern Kentucky in the near future through a new technical assistance grant.
The technical assistance grant would help schools, utility companies and other organizations assist small businesses across rural Eastern Kentucky apply for the Rural Energy for America program, otherwise known as REAP.
It was announced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of a nationwide energy efficiency initiative. Twenty-one million dollars were distributed as part of the nationwide funding.
That assistance could also include help with developing or planning the projects themselves, along with running the required assessments that would get the projects off the ground.
Scott Maas is the Rural Business-Cooperative Service Program Director for the state’s USDA branch. He says the grant would help those small businesses get funding they’d need for energy efficiency or renewable energy projects for their farms and businesses.
“It could be as simple as replacing an HVAC system, adding insulation, replacing windows or become more complex, if it's a manufacturing facility, replacing compressors or compressed airlines.”
The REAP program itself matches up to one million dollars for renewable energy projects, and $500,000 for energy efficiency grants. It’s a program available statewide that Maas says would particularly benefit the state’s eastern region as energy costs increase.
“Eastern Kentucky has always been a little bit behind. But we’re seeing more and more applications every cycle through that area. And I think to be honest, that's one of the areas of the energy costs per kilowatt, it is well above the average for the Commonwealth.”
In Eastern Kentucky in particular, Maas says he’s seen the program used for businesses affected by last year’s flooding to get back on their feet.
“It's allowing them to rebuild and basically receive a grant that would help subsidize that overall cost. So it does have a benefit to those big direct victims, if they qualify either as a small business or an ag producer.”
Another goal of the program is to encourage the use of underused technologies, like those used for producing geothermal or wind energy. In Kentucky, many of the applications the USDA sees are for solar panels.
“We closed a funding cycle, which we awarded over $6 million in grant funds. I believe of those awarded, probably 80 to 85 percent were tied to solar.”
Tom Carew is the USDA state director for Kentucky. He says as the trend of increasing utility costs continues across the Commonwealth, becoming self-dependent could present itself as a viable alternative for rural businesses.
“As we become less dependent on commercially produced power, and a little bit more dependent on power we can generate ourselves is going to be a much more efficient way to operate your business.”
As time goes on, Carew says he’d like to see these sorts of programs expand to homeowners as well.
“At USDA Rural Development, we build quite a few homes and finance new construction across the Commonwealth and rural areas. I’d love to see us have a program like this, where all the new homes that we build, that they’re solar powered.”
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