Powering Affordable Clean Energy | RUS PACE 2023

Opportunity Information: Apply for RUS PACE 2023

Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) is a USDA Rural Development program run through the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) and funded by the Inflation Reduction Act. It is designed to expand access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy in rural America by supporting the development of renewable generation and energy storage. The program is backed by about $1 billion in total funding and works primarily through RUS loans that can be partially forgiven, which effectively reduces the long-term cost of building eligible energy projects in the communities the program is trying to serve.

PACE focuses on financing renewable energy projects using wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, or biomass, along with renewable energy storage projects. The key benefit is loan forgiveness of up to 60 percent, depending on where the project will serve and who owns it. The program sets up three main categories. Category 1 offers up to 20 percent total loan forgiveness. Category 2 increases the benefit to up to 40 percent total loan forgiveness when at least 50 percent of the population in the proposed service area is located in either an Energy Community or a Distressed or Disadvantaged Community. Category 3 provides the highest benefit, up to 60 percent total loan forgiveness, for projects serving U.S. territories or certain associated states (including Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, other U.S. territories, or Compact of Free Association states), for service areas that are predominantly Tribal (60 percent or more of a Tribal area) or serve an area that constitutes a SUTA, or when the project is owned by a federally recognized Indian Tribe (including wholly owned arms and instrumentalities) or by an Alaska Native Corporation (including regional or village corporations established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act).

RUS is accepting Letters of Interest from a broad range of applicant types, reflecting that rural energy infrastructure is often developed by many kinds of entities. Eligible applicants include for-profit organizations, state or local governments, federally recognized Indian Tribes (and their wholly owned arms and instrumentalities), Alaska Native Corporations, nonprofits, institutions of higher education, and community-based organizations. Electric cooperatives are explicitly included as eligible as well, including both distribution cooperatives and generation and transmission cooperatives, which are common owners and operators of rural power systems.

In the source listing, the opportunity is identified as a discretionary program with the funding opportunity number RUS PACE 2023 and CFDA number 10.757. The listed award ceiling is $100,000,000. The original closing date shown is 2023-09-29, and the opportunity was created on 2023-07-10. Overall, PACE is essentially a large-scale rural clean energy financing tool that lowers project costs through substantial loan forgiveness, with the biggest incentives aimed at energy-transition communities, disadvantaged areas, Tribal communities, and U.S. territories.

• The Rural Utilities Service in the other sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Powering Affordable Clean Energy" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.757.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-07-10.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-09-29. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $100,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for RUS PACE 2023

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