USDA is devoting $7.3 billion to help rural electric cooperatives expand clean energy output. Sixteen projects will be sponsored through the Empowering Rural America, or New ERA program with funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. They are expected to increase clean energy output by more than 10 gigawatts. According to USDA data, the increase in clean energy is the equivalent of removing more than 10 million cars from the road each year.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Natalie Quillian says the funding is the largest investment in rural electrification since the Franklin Roosevelt administration’s New Deal programs of the 1930s. She says they will create 4,500 permanent jobs and 16,000 construction jobs.

Biden and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack made the announcement at a Thursday event in Westby, Wis. That city is home to the Dairyland Power Cooperative, one of 16 co-ops to receive funding.

Dairyland is receiving a $471 million grant and a $102 million loan to help finance eight power purchase agreements for solar and wind power installations. Vilsack says the project is an opportunity to reduce electricity costs for customers by nearly 42 percent over the next 10 years.

“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, we are supporting a more prosperous future for rural communities by speeding up the transition to clean energy while at the same time keeping monthly bills low and investing in the American workforce with new jobs and apprenticeships,” Vilsack says. “One in five rural Americans will benefit from these clean energy investments, thanks to partnerships with rural electric cooperatives like Dairyland. Put simply, this is rural power, for rural America.”

According to Vilsack, the investments will bring the promise of clean energy and lower costs to approximately 5 million rural households in 23 states. That represents nearly 20 percent of the nation’s rural households. He says the projects are projected to produce 3,700 megawatts of wind power, 4,700 megawatts of solar power, more than 800 megawatts of nuclear power and 357 megawatts of hydropower.

The new rural electric projects are also expected to increase battery storage capacity by nearly 1,900 megawatts, improving electric system resiliency.

Though estimates vary, 1 megawatt of power can typically power several hundred homes for a full year.

“All of this is designed not only to provide more reliant electricity for those rural communities but will also result in a 43.7-million-ton annual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a result of the clean energy future the president envisioned,” Vilsack says.