Eric Eriksen will spend long nights and weekends to maintain the lights of southern Colorado. As CEO of the San Luis Valley rural electric cooperative, Eriksen leads a member-owned nonprofit that provides electrical services to more than 7,500 people in seven rural counties in Rocky Mountain.
After Eriksen took over the post in 2023, Utility members urged him to apply for a surge in federal funds available through Biden-era law. It was a heavy lift that Eriksen’s team undertakes federal grant applications of 150-200 pages. They had to make it faster, he said, and they had to be good at it. Still, they knew that the application could be rejected.
Rewarded: The Electric Cooperative was awarded $1.7 million in January 2025 by the US Department of Agriculture to build two 1-megawatt solar farms. (The peak electricity demand for cooperatives is around 70 megawatts, and there is already one 3 MW solar farm.) But a few weeks later, President Donald Trump Issued executive order to suspend climate and energy spending. At the time of reporting, billions of dollars in funding for rural electric cooperatives, including San Lewis Valley cooperatives, remain in Washington, DC
The fee payer himself owns a rural electrical cooperative and elects a board of directors. Cooperatives tend to have older equipment than commercial utilities. They often use less renewable energy than the entire US electric grid, and usually have less financial resources to invest in large projects.
Farmers and small business owners have been promised financial support for energy upgrades. They are still waiting for money.
To close this gap, the Department of Agriculture has launched a new program as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which fully demonstrates its biggest investment in rural electrification since the 1930s. $9.7 billion empowerment America, known for short as the New Era, and $1 billion affordable clean energy, or Pace, has provided grants and loans to electric cooperatives and other energy companies, building new clean energy facilities and upgrading infrastructure.
“[Electric co-ops] “We’re a great place to go,” said Andy Burke, who served as the administrator of USDA’s Rural Utility Services and oversees the rural power program from 2022 to January 2025.
At the end of Biden’s term, USDA announced 49 rural electric cooperative awards throughout the new era, funding everything from storing wind, solar and batteries to expediting carbonated plants retirement, upgrading transmission lines, and launching programs that help stabilize the grid while in high demand. The PACE program funded 59 organizations, including local electrical cooperatives and private energy providers, primarily to build solar and battery facilities. The submitted cooperatives will increase their energy supply without a major price rise, Burke said.
“[Electric co-ops] Often they are at the heart of what is happening in the community, and they need to thrive for rural America to grow and thrive. ”
– Andy Burke, former administrator of rural utility services
High Country News spoke with former USDA officials and employees or officers who are scheduled to receive funds from these programs at half a dozen Colorado electric cooperatives. Some cooperatives met with their representatives and traveled to Washington to encourage the new administration to track promised grants.
Then, in late March, USDA announced that it would release the promised funds. But there was a catch.
In the press release, the agency I asked the Grant recipients to submit their revised plans. Within 30 days, the announcement that “eliminates the Biden-era and climate obligations incorporated into previous proposals” was voluntary, and that these revisions were voluntary; Online form Those who do not want to change the project say they can notify the agency to begin transferring funds.
The USDA did not answer questions from High Country News. While uncertainty remains about the project’s revision and timeline, the electric cooperative is tentatively confident that they will ultimately receive the money.
The electric cooperative funds are part of the IRA, which has apparently got the green light after being initially frozen. The USDA has also not frozen $1 billion for farmers and rural small businesses to generate clean energy. Released $7 billion With solar funds in February. Still, at the time of reporting, the Trump administration had withheld billions more with IRA funds.
Agriculture is at the heart of the San Luis Valley economy. To maintain it better than the City of Colorado and the average rural cooperative grid, members of each San Luis Valley cooperative cooperative will cost 2,800 miles of power lines across low-density terrain, Eriksen said. The Sun provided free power and the project was expected to save $200,000 a year, as the project was scheduled to fund a new era. “It’s huge,” Eriksen said. “Well, these are real dollars that change people’s lives.”
Electric cooperatives are particularly important in Colorado. In Colorado, 22 individual cooperatives distribute electricity to most of the state. They mostly emerged in the 1930s and 40s, serving rural areas that investor-owned utilities ignored. This is because expanding in a vast area with few customers was not possible. Co-ops prioritize safety – storms can lower power lines, improperly monitored and maintained lines can cause wildfires – reliable and affordable.
But now there is pressure on Colorado co-ops to invest in renewable energy. Following the passage of a 2019 state law requiring a 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, 10 Rural Colorado Cooperatives have been awarded $800 million in new ERA and PACE funds, the most recipients of any state.
Federal investment represents “generational opportunities to advance clean energy transition spaces.” This is Ted Compton, director and director of the La Plata Electric Association, another Colorado cooperative, who was awarded $13.4 million at the pace to build solar and battery storage.
The Sun provided free power and the project was expected to save $200,000 a year, as the project was scheduled to fund a new era.
Instead, the cooperatives that rely on produce almost all electricity Tri-State Generation and Transmission AssociationWyoming, a large nonprofit operating in Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska and New Mexico, owns coal-fired power plants and utility-scale solar equipment. In an email, Lee Boughey, Vice President of Strategic Communications, said Tri-State is projecting significant power load growth and infrastructure upgrades for needs. The power of reliable and affordable prices is “the lifelines of rural communities, farmers and ranchers” and other industries, he writes. Tri-State was also awarded $2.5 billion through the new ERA, which added gigawatts of renewable energy and helped offset the cost of closing several coal-powered units. Without that money, the outcome could ripple through the West – in the form of a more expensive transition to dirtier and renewables.
Experts have questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s attempts to withhold federal dollars. “Only Congress has the power of the wallet,” said Gillian Blanchard, lawyer and vice president of environmental justice, a nonprofit organization supporting pro bono lawyers. Many grant recipients already have legal agreements signed with the federal government, and in addition to violating Congressional powers, Blanchard said withholding these funds was a violation of the 1974 Water Storage Management Act.
In the San Luis Valley, starting construction of a $1.7 million-free solar will slow cost-rate wages, and in the meantime you will need to burn more fossil fuels. Eriksen said he intends to move forward. He already has a design, contractor and shovel-ready location, but he cannot take the next step until his fundraising questions are resolved.
“We’re waiting to get some certainty before we move forward,” Eriksen said.
