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USDA finances more rural electric projects
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced new rural electric funding during a stop at the United Electric Cooperative in Savannah, Missouri.
The USDA has announced a new round of financing for rural electric projects—a total of three-point-six billion dollars in loans to fund 82 projects in 31 states.
Speaking Wednesday at the United Electric Cooperative in Savannah, Missouri, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack said the loans will help finance energy efficiency projects, renewable fuels systems and smart grid technologies.
“Not only do these resources help provide greater stability and reliability, but they also enhance economic opportunity, they support job creation, and they support the small businesses, the farmsteads, and the small communities that give rise to new opportunities in rural areas,” Vilsack said.
United Electric Cooperative CEO Gene Dorrel says their 28 million dollar loan will be used for electric line and smart grid improvements–and will also bolster their efforts to expand broadband service.
“A lot our kids grow up here and they want to stay here, but they can’t find jobs here,” Dorrel says. “Hopefully this fiber project will allow them to communicate, or to find jobs, and not have to go the city for healthcare and education and those types of things.”
Since 2009, USDA Rural Development has invested more than 38 billion dollars in nearly 11-hundred electric projects across the U.S.
Link to USDA news release Energy Central web site
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