Funding Opportunities
Funding Opportunities. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.
This month on our Harvest Clean Energy report we are going to take a look at funding opportunities for renewable/clean projects and we start with Betsy Kauffman of the Energy Trust of Oregon.
KAUFMAN: Energy Trust is a non-profit organization. We get our funding from the rate payers of PGE and Pacific Power. We also have contracts with NW Natural Gas and Cascade Natural Gas and we provide incentives to homes and businesses to help them become more energy efficient and install renewable power projects.
There are a great many of these types of programs in each state that offer assistance and Kaufman says there are a number of ways they can help.
KAUFMAN: We have a whole set of programs for all kinds of businesses, small businesses up to big factories, we have programs for governments, programs for homeowners, all kinds of things to help people pay for these types of things.
I personally envision massive amounts of paperwork and a myriad of hoops you have to jump through to even have these people look at you, but Kaufman says that’s not the case.
KAUFMAN: Is it hard to get – no. We try to make these things as simple as we can. The hurdle that you do have to go through is you can’t get it for just anything and measures have to be installed by people who are qualified and often times have a relationship with Energy Trust
As far as the kinds of projects that Energy Trust is working on Kaufman says they are seeing some new ideas.
KAUFMAN: We are starting to see more and more interest in small hydro. We’re suddenly getting lots of calls from people who live on property where they’ve got like a stream running downhill or an irrigation ditch. We’re starting to get more solar. We’ve always had a solar program but we’ve been seeing our volume increase substantially year by year so I think those things are getting more common. I think in general people are getting more conscious of the fact that they can change the way they use electricity, that they can do things in their homes to make themselves more efficient, that we can generate our own electricity.
If you have an idea for a renewable or clean energy project on your farm or ranch, start with your local utilities district and ask about renewable assistance programs.
For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
