The latest tranche of USDA rural electric grants and loans exceeds $6 billion and is expected to spread benefits across 30 states.

The Department of Agriculture’s Jan. 10 announcements involve the Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) programs.

Rural electric cooperatives and communities will use the money to lower electricity costs, reduce emissions and support jobs.

New ERA and PACE were created by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and were called the largest investment in rural electrification since the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. More than one in five rural Americans are expected to benefit from the clean energy investments, USDA said.

Most of this latest round of funding — loans and grants totaling $5.49 billion for 28 clean energy projects — is through New ERA. Roughly $565 million in partially forgivable loans was allocated through PACE for 26 clean energy projects.

USDA said it has obligated approximately $9 billion of the New ERA program’s $9.7 billion budget authority for more than $14.5 billion in loans and grants benefiting 35 states where rural electric cooperatives have committed to build or buy more than 13 GW of clean energy.

Adding in private-sector funds, total rural investment through New ERA is expected to exceed $35 billion, USDA said.

Awards range from a few hundred thousand to more than a billion dollars and are going to projects such as solar, wind and battery installations; demand side management; run-of-river hydropower; loan refinancing; distributed energy resource management systems; solar agrivoltaics; transmission upgrades; power purchase agreements; load management; and virtual power plants.

Meanwhile, partially forgivable loans obligated through PACE now total more than $1.6 billion, USDA said. Solar projects dominate the allocations, with some storage and hydro projects on the list as well.

Details about funding recipients are available on the New ERA website and the PACE website.