Unleashing American Energy and Economic Prosperity; Rural Energy for America Program (REAP)

The Rural Business-Cooperative Service (RBCS or the Agency), an agency of the Rural Development (RD) mission area within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is issuing a final rule with comment period. Implementation of this action will simplify and streamline requirements and processes in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). Under the new REAP structure, projects must already be fully built and operational before the applicant ever applies. Applicants then apply, submitting actual energy production or savings data for the prior 12 months, alongside 12 months of pre-installation data. The Agency evaluates applications for completeness, eligibility, risk, and merit and will award grants subject to the availability of funds and criteria provided in an annual notice. This new approach changes the program to a post completion, performance validated model. All RES and EEI awards will now be based on actual documented output, energy savings, costs, and system performance. Bottlenecks leading to application processing backlogs such as the technical merit review clearance process have been removed from the Agency's purview. Multilocation projects and specific application of certain technologies are now ineligible, and the program proposes to eliminate state level competitions in favor of a single national scoring and selection process. The result is a streamlined but significantly different process intended to reduce risk to the program, simplify administration, and prioritize projects delivering verifiable results. The result of these changes, combined with the release of a planned online application portal, will significantly decrease burden for applicants by shortening application length and review times across the program.