ENN cites low-cost wind energy as the leading factor, along with demand management technology that helps shave costs during peak times.
Great River’s wholesale price doesn’t necessarily ripple down to co-op members, but in many cases it does. That includes Connexus, which has a long term contract with Great River.
If Great River rings a bell, you may be thinking of the electric co-op that is hosting a somewhat mysterious new energy storage system backed by Bill Gates. Opposition to new wind farms or not, Great River Energy also plans to add 900 more megawatts to its existing wind portfolio of 600 megawatts, within the next two years.
More Solar Panels For Everybody
For the record, all is not sweetness and light among electric co-ops, and long term contracts can inhibit their ability to pivot into new clean power sources.
Electricity users have other options, though. One of them is rooftop PV panels, a small but growing area of activity in Minnesota.
The agrivoltaics movement, aka solar-plus-farming, is also sending more solar panels out to the countryside. Minnesota has become a hotspot of activity in that area, and farmers are not the only ones to benefit. Semi-rural and rural corporate campuses can also host solar panels that support pollinator habitats, grazing lands, and other agri-friendly usage.
One especially cool example is the Aveda campus in Blaine, Minnesota, which doubles as a certified 58-acre habitat, but we digress.
US Department Of Agriculture Hearts PV On Farms
The US Department of Agriculture is another factor driving PV adoption in rural areas. The agency’s REAP energy loan program for farmers included loans for solar panels, among other clean power goodies, for farmers in Minnesota and elsewhere during the Obama administration, and it survived into the 2018 Farm Bill during the Trump administration.
Earlier this week, the USDA announced that it is turning its attention to rural towns as well as farms. The new Rural Energy Pilot Program has a pot of $10 million available “to help people living in rural towns develop community renewable energy projects that will help them cut their energy costs and contribute to the nationwide effort to reduce pollution that contributes to climate change. ”
“These funds will be targeted to help people who live in communities that have been historically underinvested and disinvested,” USDA adds.
Solar panels made the cut, along with wind, geothermal, micro-hydroelectric, and biomass or other forms of bioenergy.
If you want in, there is still time. Check out the Rural Energy Pilot Program web page and get your Letter of Intent in there by 11:59 p.m. EST on April 19, 2022.
All (Renewable Energy) Politics Is Local
All this activity could lead to increased support for renewable energy in rural areas, even if it doesn’t reflect in political affiliation.
Last June the Pew Research Center took …….
Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/21/solar-power-bridges-the-political-divide-in-new-different-ways/