Powering Affordable Clean Energy Program

On August 16, 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 (Public Law 117-169). Subtitle C, Section 22001 of IRA amended Section 9003 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (7 U.S.C. 8103) by adding new subsection (h). Through the passing of IRA, the Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) Program was established with the goal of supporting clean, affordable energy growth across America. The PACE Program will be administered by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a Rural Development (RD) Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), that provides mortgage loans and loan guarantees to electric systems to provide and improve electric service in rural areas pursuant to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, as amended (7 U.S.C. 901 et seq., RE Act). Section 22001 of IRA provided the Agency with $1,000,000,000 in Budget Authority (BA), to remain available until September 30, 2031. With this BA, the Agency through the PACE Program, will provide loans to eligible entities, with varying levels of loan forgiveness, for Projects that generate and/or store electricity from Renewable Energy Resource (RER) systems.

The latest form for Powering Affordable Clean Energy Program expires 2028-01-31 and can be found here.