The program provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding (now REAP grants are now up to 50%) to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements. Agricultural producers may also apply for new energy efficient equipment and new system loans for agricultural production and processing.

The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program is part of the Inflation Reduction Act. With $1 billion in funding, PACE helps make clean, affordable, and reliable energy accessible to the people of rural America. Under PACE, USDA Rural Development’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) will forgive up to 60 percent of loans for renewable energy projects that use wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, or biomass, as well as for renewable energy storage projects.  Congress has authorized $1 billion in PACE program funding. The maximum available loan is $100 million including the forgivable portion. The minimum loan is $1 million.

The 2023 Sunny Awards for Equitable Community Solar prize competition, due July 14, offers up to five $10,000 Sunny Awards Grand Prizes, up to 30 $2,500 Sunny Finalist Awards, and up to 15 $5,000 Meaningful Benefits/Engagement Awards to competitors who find effective ways to equitably deliver the specific, meaningful benefits of community solar identified by the National Community Solar Partnership.

The Washington State Dept. of Commerce is currently offering technical assistance opportunities through the Solar plus Storage for Resilient Communities program at no cost to a limited number of communities through the Solar plus Storage for Resilient Communities program. This assistance will position communities to apply for future funding through Commerce’s Solar plus Storage for Resilient Communities grant program. Commerce will prioritize requests from rural, tribal, and other communities most vulnerable to the impacts from power outages and emergencies.

The Blue Sky® funding awards can help to cover the capital costs to install qualifying, new renewable energy systems for non-residential sites in Pacific Power's service area.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) announced the Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) 2023 funding opportunity. This funding opportunity will award $6.5 million for seedling R&D projects that focus on innovative and novel ideas in photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) and are riskier than research ideas based on established technologies. SETO expects to make about 14 to 24 awards each ranging between $250,000 and $400,000. 

State of Washington Department of Commerce is now accepting applications for funding to entities/organizations with clean energy projects in a rural area from the Rural Clean Energy program. 

The American-Made Community Power Accelerator Prize is a $10 million prize competition designed to fast-track the efforts of new, emerging, and expanding solar developers and co-developers to learn, participate, and grow their operations to support multiple successful community solar projects.

The goal of this prize is to grow a robust ecosystem of community solar project developers that incorporate meaningful benefits into projects across the United States.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today launched a new up to $50 million program to help communities across the country transition to clean energy systems that are reliable, affordable, equitable, and reflective of local priorities. The Clean Energy to Communities program (C2C) will connect local governments, electric utilities, community-based groups, and others with the innovative modeling and testing tools developed at DOE’s world-class national laboratories to transform their clean energy goals and ambitions into reality. 

The new Washington Department of Commerce Solar plus Storage for Resilient Communities program provides funding and technical assistance to support solar and battery storage systems at community buildings.