Section 9005-Energy Audit and Renewable Energy Development

Recommendations

Section 9005 remains unfunded five years after passage in the 2002 Farm Bill, even though energy audits and assessments are essential tools for helping farmers and rural businesses to identify cost-effective renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvement, and even though diesel and fertilizer costs have doubled in cost since 2002. Congress should:

  • Increase funding for the program from $5 million in 2008 to $25 million by 2012.
  • Retain Section 9005’s existing focus on energy audits and assessments, and add additional energy cost education components to the program. The new educational programs would be funded with competitive, multi-year block grants to eligible entities.

Benefits

Funded at the levels recommended above, this program would achieve the following benefits

  • Farmers and rural businesses would save at least $3.5 billion dollars over five years (through overall 2% reduction in ag energy expenses for fertilizer, pesticide, electricity, diesel).
  • Approximately 7.6 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions would be avoided in the same five year period.

Components for an Improved Section 9005

  • Energy audits, cost-shared between the farm/rural business and the institutional grant recipient.  These audits could apply to equipment (e.g. HVAC) or the field (e.g. tillage).
  • Renewable energy assessments (cost-shared) that provide an initial evaluation of a site’s resource potential and a recommendation on the need for a full-scale feasibility study.
  • Environmental management system (EMS) plans incorporating the recommendations of audits and assessments to create a whole-farm/whole-business method for continually improving the environmental performance and energy efficiency of the operation.
  • Capacity building/developing in-house staff that:
    • Serve as central points of contact for farmers and rural businesses seeking to evaluate energy practices and technologies
    • Are properly trained to collect data for audits and renewable energy assessments
  • Farm demonstrations, in partnership with the private sector, showcasing cost-effective high efficiency equipment and energy management practices such as precision agriculture and conservation tillage
  • Educational workshops, using video link-up to maximize geographic reach, on different clean energy technologies and techniques. 
  • Grant training workshops that prepare participants to apply for energy-related grant and loan guarantee opportunities, such as the USDA’s Section 9006 program.