By Claire Carlson for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Deborah Van Fleet for Nebraska News Connection reporting for The Daily Yonder-Public News Service Collaboration

A federal grant of $62 million to the nonprofit Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, will help build residential solar-power installations for Nebraska families who usually can’t afford the cost-saving systems, the center’s director said.

The Center for Rural Affairs is one of 60 grantees across the country that will participate in the Solar for All program, a Biden administration initiative that is part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The program will provide a one-time injection of $7 billion nationally to help people who would normally have a hard time paying for residential solar production capacity.

“The people that have built solar have tended to be middle income and higher individuals or institutions that have the discretionary resources to do the upfront costs or do the financing,” said Brian Depew, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs.

The center has advocated for economic justice and environmental stewardship in Nebraska’s rural communities for more than 50 years. The Solar for All project will serve all of Nebraska, not just rural areas.

“People with less fiscal capacity have not yet been able to participate fully in the benefits of solar energy,” Depew said. “That’s what we’re trying to change.”

The Center for Rural Affairs received word of the grant in April (2024). Depew said learning about the large grant was a “surreal” moment for his organization. 

“It’s a major award for the Center for Rural Affairs,” Depew said in a Daily Yonder interview. “Just the magnitude of the award and the size of the project that we’ll be able to do.”

The Solar for All program comes out of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency estimates that 900,000 households across the country will benefit from the solar projects funded by the program. Recipients range from state governmental agencies to nonprofit organizations like the Center for Rural Affairs. 

Once the awards are allocated to the organizations such as the Center for Rural Affairs that will distribute the funds to recipients, eligible households in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. territories, and tribal nations will be able to apply for grants, technical assistance, and loans to pay for solar panels. 

In Nebraska, this opportunity will most likely open to residents in the next two years. “There will be an up to one-year planning period where we will further design…the application period [for grants],” Depew said. “We hope to start piloting some actual solar installations during the planning period, but it could be a full year before we are really up and ready to take applications from a broader array of people.” 

Depew credits the Center for Rural Affairs’ success in getting this award to the number of stakeholders they conferred with during the application process. The center met with more than 50 stakeholders from rural, suburban, urban, and tribal communities in Nebraska to get their input for a program proposal that made sense for their communities. What made it into the final application was a three-part strategy for implementing residential solar in Nebraska. 

The first strategy is community solar, in which public utilities manage the solar arrays and eligible residences could benefit from the solar through a subscription service or by owning some of the panels. The second is multifamily affordable housing solar, in which the center would work with utilities, developers, or low-income housing financing partners to deploy solar at multifamily residences. And the third strategy would be directly providing grants or loans for rooftop solar to individual residences. 

The center’s Solar for All application proposed allocating each of the three strategies one-third of the total project funds. This could change as they work on the details in the planning process that will take place in collaboration with the EPA over the next year.

“All of the projects are required to be residential-serving solar, and they’re required to serve low to moderate income individuals and individuals living in historically disadvantaged census tracts,” Depew said. 

The EPA identified these census tracts using the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which is part of the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative to ensure 40% of federal environmental investments go to communities that are “marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution,” according to a press release. Some of these census tracts will include rural communities, but people can also qualify at the individual household level regardless of the census tract they live in. 

The Solar for All money will be disbursed over a five year period. The Center for Rural Affairs plans to put some of the money into a revolving loan fund so they can extend the funding beyond the five years. A complete list of Solar for All awardees may be found here.


Claire Carlson wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.


get more stories like this via email

An Indiana-based summit meeting will spotlight how university campuses can help power economic growth across the state.

Indiana University hosts its first Economic Development Summit on August 12. The daylong event will bring together IU leaders, business owners and government officials to explore new partnerships, and look at how some collaborations already in place are working.

Michael Huber, vice president of university relations at Indiana University, said the summit will highlight ways different campuses fuel local development.

"Each Indiana University campus has got different strengths," Huber pointed out. "We're hoping if you're an elected official -- maybe someone from the private sector who already works with IU, or has new solutions for IU -- you're going to be able to come to this conference and see what IU is doing across the state."

Huber hopes the event will help build new statewide partnerships. IU officials said economic growth depends on collaboration. The summit is open to anyone and includes topics like small business growth, workforce development and innovation.

Ken Iwama, vice president of regional campuses and online education at IU, said bringing all the right voices together can spark something bigger.

"To have them come together in one space, you end up sparking and igniting new ideas and new collaborations," Iwama emphasized. "Universities can't do it alone, nonprofits can't do it alone, economic development associates, business can't do it alone. I'm hoping to see that type of energy happen in this particular summit."

Attendees will also hear about current programs to boost career fields, from health care and manufacturing, to bioscience and teaching.


get more stories like this via email

Women who recently graduated from college are earning significantly less than their male counterparts.

A new study revealed women from Pennsylvania and other states who earned bachelor's degrees within the past seven years earn an average of 18% less than similarly-educated men. Research from the National Association of Colleges and Employers found segregated work environments are the main reason for the disparity.

Mary Gatta, director of research and public policy for the association and co-author of the report, said the problem is so prevalent, job analysts gave it a formal title.

"Some of that, as we see in our survey, is attributed to men and women working in different industries and different types of work," Gatta explained. "We called it 'occupational sex segregation.'"

The Early Career Talent Survey interviewed 1,400 professionals who graduated between 2017 and 2023, including about 500 men and 900 women. It found the gap brings financial challenges for women, who are more likely to have student loans but are less confident of their ability to repay them.

Despite financial disparities, career satisfaction was similar between genders among early-career professionals. Both men and women share comparable views on the speed of their career progression, although they cited different factors affecting their advancement.

Gatta noted it can cause long-term problems.

"The pay gap continues as women continue in their careers, with less money they are paying into Social Security, it's less money they are putting into their retirement," Gatta emphasized. "It has immediate impacts around economic security but also economic security as we age."

Nearly three-quarters of men surveyed work for private-sector companies, while just over half of women do. It found 30% of women work for nonprofits, where compensation is typically lower than in private industries. Gatta argued women need to gain more opportunities to explore nontraditional roles.

"The importance of helping introduce women and men to atypical occupations is really important," Gatta stressed. "Introducing women to STEM at an early age, getting that career exploration, we know that is important in helping to break some of that."

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


get more stories like this via email

Groups opposed to NorthWestern Energy's latest rate-hike proposal plan to rally on Monday in Helena.

In an unusual move, the utility giant used a legal loophole to increase electric rates for its Montana customers without approval, just weeks before it was scheduled to argue for approval. Montana's Public Service Commission regulates utilities, including NorthWestern, which serves two-thirds of the state.

After the Public Service Commission failed to act within nine months of a request, NorthWestern announced a 17% rate increase, or more than $200 a year per customer.

Dick Maney, a resident of Butte, said while Montanans elect Public Service Commission members, he worries the commission is not always acting on the consumers' behalf.

"That is the problem," Maney asserted. "I don't think it has a lot to do with NorthWestern Energy. I think it has a lot to do with the regulators on the outside, not on the inside of the company."

The move follows a 28% rate increase in 2023 and precedes arguments starting Monday for another 20% increase. The Monday rally to oppose the hikes is being hosted by a coalition of groups: Montana Conservation Voters, Families for a Livable Climate, Forward Montana, Big Sky 55+, Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate, Montana Sierra Club and Helena Interfaith Climate Advocates.

Maney noted the rate increases are troublesome on top of the many other increasing costs of living in the state. For example, the median residential property in 2023 saw a 21% higher tax bill than the previous year, according to the Montana Free Press.

"We have to deal with property taxes, which have increased substantially over the last couple of years and that is really affecting everyone," Maney pointed out. "An increase in electricity affects us a lot."

In the final days of the legislative session, state lawmakers passed property tax relief measures for most Montanans by raising taxes on second homes.


get more stories like this via email