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KyCGA News
February 19, 2010
Incentives
Available for Farmers to Become More Energy Efficient
ARRA On-Farm Energy Efficiency & Production Incentives
Program Application
GOAP Press Release
More than $600,000 is
available for farmers to "go green" through the 2010 ARRA
On-farm Energy Efficiency & Production Incentives Program.
This program is administered by the Governor's Office of
Agricultural Policy, and applications are due to GOAP
postmarked no later than March 26, 2010.
Applicants will be
limited to 25% reimbursement for the eligible expenditures
not to exceed $10,000 for the life of the ARRA program.
While a number of
components and building upgrades are eligible for the
incentives program, GOAP senior policy analyst Tim Hughes
says corn farmers may want to look at installing or
upgrading to an energy efficient grain drying system.
Suggested improvements include:
- Addition of recirculation of
cooling section exhaust air
- New dryers with increased
column width
- Implementation of dryeration
- Addition of in-bin cooling
Hughes said other projects
could include biomass heaters for farm shops, farm building
upgrades which reduce energy consumption, low-pressure
irrigation systems and biomass crop production. A list of
eligible cost-share items are listed in the
application (appendix A).
An additional grant program is
available from the USDA Office of Rural Development which
provides grants for energy audits and renewable energy
development assistance. Hughes said it is possible to
receive funding from both entities on the same project.
The application requests that a third-party audit be
conducted to evaluate where energy savings could be
achieved. Hughes said that the audit is not required, but
those that have the audit completed will have an advantage
over project requests that do not. Applicants must
include enough information within the application to
demonstrate that the investment will provide significant
energy related benefits.
Purdue University has a number
of self-audit and calculator tools available a farmer may
want to utilize to determine if significant energy savings
may be achieved. The tools include a grain dryer energy
efficiency audit. Go to:
http://www.extension.purdue.edu/renewable-energy/on-farm-efficiency.shtml
to use the tools.
For questions about
the application process for the ARRA On-farm Energy
Incentives Program, please contact Bryan Thomas, special
projects coordinator, at (502) 564-4627 or
bryan.thomas@ky.gov.
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