Assistance program
Rural Energy for America Program
$1.7 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Rural Business Cooperative Service, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Loan Guarantees/Grants
- CFDA number
- 10.868
- What it does
- (1) Provision of grants and loan guarantees to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to promote energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems development. The program provides grants of up to 25% of project costs and/or loan guarantees of up to 75% of project costs to purchase and install energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems. (2) Provision of grants to government entities or their instrumentalities, educational institutions, rural electric cooperatives, Resource Conservation and Development Councils, and public power entities to assist with the cost of performing energy audits and renewable energy development assistance for agricultural producers and rural small businesses. Recipients of energy audits must pay at least 25% of the cost of the audit.
- Who benefits
- For energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy systems the program is for agricultural producers and rural small businesses. For energy audits and renewable energy development assistance grants, units of State, tribal, and local governments; land-grant colleges, universities, and other institutions of higher education; rural electric cooperatives and public power entities; instrumentalities of a state, tribal, and local governments; and Resource Conservation and Development Councils are eligible for the assistance.
- Who applies
- To be eligible for renewable energy systems or energy efficiency improvement assistance, an applicant must be an agricultural producer or rural small business. Rural small businesses must be located in a rural area. The applicant or owner must not have an outstanding judgment, delinquent on any Federal debt or debarred from receiving Federal assistance. Under the Energy Audit and Renewable Energy Development Assistance programs eligible applicants include governmental entities and their instrumentalities, educational institutions, rural electric cooperatives, Resource Conservation and Development Councils, and public power entities.
- Authorized by
- 7 U.S.C. § 8107
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Grants
$1.6B
98%
Loans
$40.0M
2%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments