New Bremen’s John Heitkamp receives $97,720 to install energy-efficient grain dryer through REAP funding – Mercer County Outlook

Community, local news, Regional

(11-1-24) The USDA recently announced a $97,720 investment to purchase and install an energy-efficient grain dryer for John Heitkamp in New Bremen. The grain dryer is expected to save the family farm $44,613 in annual energy costs and save 681,323 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per year, enough to power 63 homes. This energy efficiency update will offset nearly 70 percent of the farm’s annual energy consumption.

John Heitkamp is one of the recipients of Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) funding, with this round totaling $4,368,004 for Ohio, bringing the total investment in the past two rounds to $5,311,488. REAP enables agricultural producers and rural small business owners to expand their use of wind, solar, geothermal, and small hydropower energy and make energy efficiency improvements.

The full list of Ohio recipients is here: https://www.rd.usda.gov/media/file/download/usda-rd-fy24-reap-round-six-10182024.pdf. As part of this most recent announcement, USDA also announced an additional $600 million in investments will be made available across three funding rounds from now until 2027: https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2024/10/18/biden-harris-administration-continues-historic-clean-energy.