(The Center Square) — Maryland is receiving more than $3.7 million in grants from the United States Department of Agriculture’s “largest single investment in rural electrification since the Rural Electrification Act of 1936,” according to a press release from the department.
The USDA is investing $266 million in clean energy projects in rural areas in 47 states and Guam and Puerto Rico through the Rural Energy for America Program. The program is part of the Justice40 Initiative, established in a 2021 executive order called “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” which “put the climate crisis at the center of United States foreign policy and national security.”
Justice40 sets the goal that 40% of federal investments in many programs addressing climate change, energy, transit, and affordable and sustainable housing must go to disadvantaged communities.
This round of funding, in part supplied by the year-old Inflation Reduction Act – “the nation’s largest-ever investment in combating the climate crisis,” according to the release – brings the total the legislation has contributed to REAP to $1.3 billion.
The largest and all but six of Maryland’s 33 grants are going to its largest congressional district, District 1, which encompasses all of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. All but two of them are for solar systems.
Nearly $700,000 is going to a vegetable canning business in Centreville that is almost 125 years old. It’s estimated that the new system will save the company more than $74,000 in electrical costs per year, according to the USDA’s project description.
The next largest grant – approximately $366,000 – is also for a Centreville resident who operates eight poultry houses. The solar system is intended to reduce electrical costs by almost $87,000 annually.
Another poultry farm in Snow Hill will receive over $260,000 for a solar system that’s expected to save the farm more than $37,000 annually.
The two non-solar grants were for a grain drying system ($117,153) and replacement blades and a motor for a wind turbine ($19,992), intended to save $8,867 and $1,146 per year, respectively.
The department expects to make additional awards in the coming months, according to the release.
