$4B for Rural US Energy, Brookfield Neoen Acquisition

The USDA has announced $4.37 B in funding for the Empowering Rural America program, Brookfield Asset Management has acquired a 53% stake in Neoen, and European Energy and Nova Holdings will upgrade 17 aging German wind farms. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www.intelstor.com. Allen Hall: Right, first up, the U. S. Department of Agriculture has announced a 4. 37 billion dollars in funding through their Empowering Rural America program. This historic investment, the largest in rural electrification since 1936, will support clean energy development across seven states. Now the program aims 5, 000 jobs, reduce electricity costs, and cut climate pollution by about 1. 1 million tons annually. 4. 37 billion as the Biden administration exits the executive branch is a lot of money. Does this have a chance of, of existing once the new administration comes in? Phil Totaro: Yeah, I actually think so because this, this program is done through the Department of Agriculture interestingly enough, not the Department of Energy, and the reason that they're doing it is because the co ops are actually, outside of kind of the, the organized utilities coordinating like corporate power buying. The co ops are actually one of the biggest You know, in aggregate power buyers in, in the United States, especially when you start talking about all the co ops, we're getting kind of gobbled up by Touchstone and, you know, most co ops in the United States are now organized under, you know, a parent kind of umbrella corporation. So this is a lot of money that's going into, you know, basically subsidizing renewable energy power buying or the development of distributed power generation facilities. That are gonna be adjacent to these these rural communities that are able to take advantage ...