REAP, like many other federally funded programs, has been affected by President Donald Trump’s federal spending freeze. That freeze, announced on Jan. 27 and blocked by a federal judge on Jan. 28, has left many businesses in rural America facing financial limbo, including the Wooly Pig Farm Brewery. They saw REAP as a way to make their business even more sustainable and cut down on their roughly $20,000 annual energy bill. They applied in 2023 and were accepted in 2024. They landed on a 100-kilowatt solar array, created and installed by Paradise Energy Solutions, with a two-way meter to measure the electricity they use when the sun isn’t shining and the excess electricity they generate and sell back to the electric company. In all, the project cost roughly $292,000, half of which was supposed to be funded by the REAP grant. Another 10% of the cost was supposed to be recovered through the Energy Community Tax Credit Bonus – a tax credit for projects in “energy communities,” or areas impacted by the loss of the coal industry. With the solar panels, Wooly Pig Farm Brewery will be creating energy and selling it to electricity providers. Not only are they allowing their brewery to run on clean energy, but about half of the electricity they produce is being poured into the community and will be enough to power roughly 14 houses per year. source: https://matternews.org/community/ru...d-federal-funds-for-a-solar-array-are-frozen/
