Biden’s clean energy investment for rural Wisconsin could cut utility costs nearly in half

A new federal program is providing resources to help rural communities across the country install renewable energy infrastructure, including in parts of rural Wisconsin, where it’s expected to lower energy costs for customers by nearly half over the next 10 years.

President Joe Biden visited Westby on Sept. 5 to announce the funding, which he called the most transformative investment in electricity and clean energy for rural America since the New Deal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Empowering Rural America program is awarding $7.3 billion in loans and grants to 16 rural electric cooperatives operating in 23 states to help them transition to clean energy sources.

Dairyland Power Cooperative, which is based in La Crosse, is receiving nearly $537 million to add four new solar arrays and four new wind power installations throughout its service area. Dairyland serves customers in western Wisconsin, as well as in parts of Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois.

The company estimates that this new clean energy infrastructure will reduce electric rates for its members by 42% over the next decade. This will save its customers more than $130 million, Dairyland CEO Brent Ridge said, according to the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal. The new project will deliver power to about 240,000 homes and reduce the company’s carbon footprint by 70%.

“I think it’s a win-win all the way around,” Westby Mayor Danny Helgerson told the Wisconsin Independent, because it will both lower costs and reduce the drain on the existing electrical grid.

In Westby, a small city of roughly 2,300 people in Vernon County, renewable energy is becoming a big deal, Helgerson said. More homeowners and businesses are installing solar panels, the city hall is getting more visitors asking how they can go solar, and the city is eyeing a new housing development that would include solar. He said those who have turned to solar have already seen cost benefits.

Biden made his remarks in front of a solar array at Vernon Electric Cooperative, an affiliate of Dairyland. Just a few miles north, wind turbines dot the highway between Westby and Cashton, making the area a fitting backdrop for the announcement and showcasing the community’s interest in renewable energy.

Helgerson said that the investment is especially good for businesses, which the city is trying to attract with its new business park.

“Anything that makes it better for small businesses and able to use renewables in the area is great,” he said. “It’s just really nice to see that the administration is investing in rural communities.”

Darin Von Ruden, a longtime Westby resident and farmer who is also the president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, told the Wisconsin Independent he thinks the new investments will help residents as well as the region’s farmers. He introduced Biden at the Westby event.

Construction on the new solar and wind projects is expected to begin in the next six months, but locations have not yet been finalized. Von Ruden said he thinks building on farms would benefit farmers. Solar panels can be installed on current pastures and still leave animals with enough room to graze beneath them, and wind turbines can be erected in cropland with a minimal footprint, he said.

More farmers are interested in renewable energy to lower costs, too. Von Ruden himself has had solar panels at his farm since 2012 and has seen his electric bills drop. In the winter, his electric bills are about 60% of what they were before he installed solar. His bills in the summer used to be close to $800 a month, while this year’s June bill was about $160.

“It certainly is going to give us the opportunity to make sure that we have a new power source well into the future, and just looking at the dollars that will be coming, will help to make that energy more affordable to the average consumer,” he said. “It’s not really just the farmers that are going to be benefiting from this, it’s going to be everybody that gets power from Dairyland.”

Helgerson and Von Ruden said it was significant to see rural communities that typically have fewer resources get access to this funding.

“A lot of people think all the investments [are] made in larger cities. It’s nice to see that they’re highlighting the importance of the rural communities,” Helgerson said.

“It does seem like we’re sometimes the last ones to get those dollars, and this program is putting those dollars out front first on programs to make sure that rural electric providers are the first ones to receive dollars from a new program,” Von Ruden said.

This funding comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed in 2022. In addition to lowering utility costs, the White House said, it expects this investment to support more than 4,500 permanent jobs and more than 16,000 construction jobs, as well as prevent at least 43.7 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year.

“This investment is not only modernizing our energy grid and lowering rates, it’s investing in the Wisconsin workers who will have more opportunities to stay in the communities they love and work a family-supporting career in a growing sector,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who voted in favor of the IRA, said in a statement.