REAP Grant Deadline

REAP Grant Deadline. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. The REAP program or Renewable Energy for America Program has yet another facet that just could help someone contemplating getting into a renewable project. Leif Elgethun, with E-Newables, LLC says it's aimed at folks in the pre-project stage. ELGETHUN: It's an existing program since the 2001 Farm Bill that the REAP program was originally developed in and this is just one piece of the REAP program but they've separated the due dates for the two pieces so that it more closely reflects the construction process for renewable energy projects. So this particular grant is for a feasibility study. Feasibility studies are a must for the more complex projects and can be costly. ELGETHUN: People are going to need to either have an engineer or a contractor develop a feasibility study that looks at all of the technical and permitting and financial constraints on a renewable energy project to determine whether or not it's a project that can in fact move forward. You can apply for both the feasibility grant and also a grant for the actual project. ELGETHUN: On the larger projects if you want to apply for a REAP grant to do the actual project you actually are required to have a feasibility study and the purpose of that is to give the government and officials deciding whether or not to fund the project through the REAP program the information they need to rank and determine if the project is feasible and is something that will be a good business decision for the small business owner or the agricultural producer. Elgethun says the deadline is coming up. ELGETHUN: The deadline to get a grant to do a feasibility study through this program through the USDA is October 5th and so they still have a little over a month to get the application in so they can do a feasibility study on their project which would then give them the necessary information to seek a grant to do the actual project in the following year. They'll pay you 25% of the total feasibility study cost up to $50-thousand dollars. For additional information on clean energy and the REAP program, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org