Small business owner Arla Wagner of Arla’s Sewing Room in Lansing (left) | Farmers Alex Schaefers and son Tyler of Marquette, Iowa (right) | Photos by Brooke Till
The Clean Energy Districts of Iowa completed its 2024 USDA REAP-TAG program August 31, 2026. This award provided technical assistance to Iowa’s rural businesses and farms, particularly for USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grants for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.
“The USDA REAP program is very valuable to Iowa,” says CEDI REAP-TAG program coordinator Steve Hopkins, citing that more than 1,757 REAP grants have been awarded in the state between 2008 and 2025, totaling $107.95M. Of those, 1,283 (73%) were grants under $50,000. REAP is a cost-share program, meaning that applicants co-capitalize their projects at a rate of 50-75 percent. To date, more than $430M in REAP projects are at work in Iowa, given recipients’ shared investment.
“However, the REAP grant application is complex and lengthy,” Steve continues. “Many of the applicants we worked with confided that they might not have considered applying for this valuable resource without grant coaching and assistance from CEDI. Given that hurdle, we are thrilled to see so many successful REAP projects in Northeast Iowa.”
Completed projects include:
- Arla’s Sewing Room (Lansing, IA), where small business owner Arla Wagner installed two heat pumps for more efficient heating and cooling, saving hundreds every month
- Alex Schaefers (Marquette, IA), where the Schaefers family upgraded grain drying equipment, saving their family farm thousands each year
- Meuser Lumber (Guttenberg, IA), where small business owner John Finch installed rooftop solar on two store buildings, offsetting energy costs
- Patchwork Green Farm (Decorah, IA), where farmer Erik Sessions installed a small ground-mount solar array to handle the growing farm’s energy needs
- Sponheim Agri Sales (Osage, IA), where farmer-owner Shawn Sponheim cut the business’s energy costs by installing a more efficient grain conveyor
Each of these REAP grant recipients started with a clear need – one familiar to rural Iowans everywhere: to understand and reduce their energy costs and improve energy efficiency to manage the expense of powering their operations, even as prices rise in the future.
Due to administrative changes, the USDA REAP grant and loan program for rural farms and small businesses – part of the Farm Bill since 2008 – has effectively been closed to new applications for 17 months. Read more here.
REAP Advocacy in Washington, D.C.
Invest in Our Future Fly-In on June 23-24, 2026 in Washington, D.C.. (Joy Asico-Smith / Asico Photo)
To support the re-opening of this valuable REAP program, Steve Hopkins joined three other NE Iowa advocates in Washington, D.C. in June 2026, to speak to Congressional representatives about the impact and importance of REAP in Iowa. “So many initiatives are governed by the Farm Bill,” Steve explains. “Our goal was to lift up REAP’s success and introduce rural Iowans who have benefited directly from this practical program. We sincerely hope our leadership recognize that Iowans are willing to continue engineering energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy for the good of their rural businesses and communities – if and when REAP resumes.”
To learn more, please download CEDI’s REAP overview and testimony by fly-in participants Steve Hopkins (CEDI REAP-TAG coach), Kelsi Davis (Clayton County Energy District coordinator), Arla Wagner (Lansing, Iowa, REAP grant recipient), and John Nielsen (Novak Electric, a solar contractor, in Decorah, Iowa). Further coverage appears here.
Posted: August 20, 2026
