Eric Eriksen puts in long nights and weekends to keep the lights on in southern Colorado. As the CEO of the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative, Eriksen leads a member-owned nonprofit that provides electric service to more than 7,500 people across seven rural counties in the Rocky Mountains — a small cooperative serving a large area.

After Eriksen took over the post in 2023, the utility’s members urged him to apply for a flurry of federal funds available through Biden-era legislation. It was a heavy lift for Eriksen’s team to take on 150- to 200-page federal grant applications. They had to do it fast, he said, and they had to be good at it. Even then, they knew, the application might be denied.

It paid off: The electric cooperative was awarded $1.7 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in January 2025 to construct two 1-megawatt solar farms. (The co-op’s peak electric demand is around 70 megawatts, and it already has one 3 MW solar farm.) But just weeks later, President Donald Trump issued an executive order pausing climate and energy spending. As of press time, billions of dollars of funding for rural electric cooperatives, including the San Luis Valley co-op, remains in Washington, D.C.

Ratepayers themselves own rural electric cooperatives and elect the board of directors. Co-ops tend to have older equipment than for-profit utilities. They often use less renewable energy than America’s electric grid as a whole and typically have fewer financial resources to invest in large projects.

To help fill this gap, the Department of Agriculture launched new programs as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that altogether mark the largest investment in rural electrification since the 1930s. The $9.7 billion Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and the $1 billion Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) offered grants and loans to electric cooperatives and other energy companies to build new clean energy facilities and upgrade infrastructure.

“(Electric co-ops) are often at the center of what is going on in a community, and they need to thrive for rural America to grow and prosper,” said Andy Berke, who served as the administrator for the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service, overseeing rural electricity programs, from 2022 until January 2025.

At the end of Biden’s term, the USDA announced awards for 49 rural electric co-ops through New ERA to fund everything from wind, solar and battery storage to expediting coal plant retirements, upgrading transmission lines and starting programs to help stabilize the grid during high demand. The PACE program funded 59 organizations, including rural electric co-ops and private energy providers, largely to build solar and battery facilities. The plans co-ops submitted would boost energy supply without big price hikes, Berke said.

“(Electric co-ops) are often at the center of what is going on in a community, and they need to thrive for rural America to grow and prosper.”

High Country News spoke with several former USDA officials and employees or board members at a half-dozen electric cooperatives across Colorado that were set to receive funding from these programs. Some cooperatives met with their representatives and traveled to Washington to urge the new administration to follow through on promised grants.

Then, in late March, the USDA announced that it would release the promised funding. But there was a catch. 

In a press release, the agency asked grant winners to submit revised plans within 30 days “eliminating Biden-era DEIA and climate mandates embedded in previous proposals.” The announcement indicates that these revisions are voluntary, and an online form says grantees that do not wish to alter their projects can notify the agency to initiate transfer of funds. 

The USDA did not respond to questions from High Country News. Although uncertainty remains about project revisions and timelines, electric co-ops are tentatively confident that they will eventually receive the money.

Electric cooperative funding is one part of the IRA that’s apparently getting a green light after initially being frozen. The USDA is also unfreezing $1 billion for agricultural producers and rural small businesses to generate clean energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency released $7 billion in solar funding in February. Still, as of press time, the Trump administration was withholding billions more in IRA funds.

AGRICULTURE IS THE CORE of the San Luis Valley’s economy. The 2,800 miles of power lines across sparsely populated terrain cost each San Luis Valley co-op member more to maintain than the grid of any Colorado city or the average rural co-op, Eriksen said. With the sun providing free power, the project slated for funding through New ERA was expected to save the co-op $200,000 per year. “It’s huge,” Eriksen said. “Gosh, these are real dollars that are going to change people’s lives.” 

Electric cooperatives are especially vital in Colorado, where 22 individual co-ops distribute electricity across most of the state. They largely emerged in the 1930s and ’40s to serve rural regions neglected by investor-owned utilities because expanding across vast areas with few customers was unprofitable. Co-ops prioritize safety — storms can down power lines, and improperly monitored and maintained lines can spark wildfires — reliability and affordability.   

But now, the pressure is on for co-ops in Colorado to invest in renewable energy, following passage of state laws starting in 2019 that require utilities to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2030. Ten rural Colorado co-ops were collectively awarded $800 million in New ERA and PACE funding, the most recipients of any state. 

The federal investment represents a “generational opportunity to make progress in the clean energy transition space,” said Ted Compton, board president of La Plata Electric Association, another Colorado co-op that was awarded $13.4 million through PACE to build solar and battery storage. 

With the sun providing free power, the project slated for funding through New ERA was expected to save the co-op $200,000 per year.

Few co-ops generate all their electricity, relying instead on Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a large nonprofit active in Colorado, Arizona, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming, which owns coal-fired power plants and utility-scale solar installations. In an email, Lee Boughey, vice president for strategic communications, said Tri-State is forecasting significant electricity load growth and needs infrastructure upgrades. Reliable, affordable power is the “lifeblood of rural communities, farmers, ranchers” and other industries, he wrote. Tri-State was also awarded $2.5 billion through New ERA to add more than a gigawatt of renewable energy and help offset the cost of closing down several coal-powered units. Without that money, the consequences — in the form of dirtier energy or a more costly transition to renewables — could ripple across the West.

Experts have questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold federal dollars. “Only Congress has the power of the purse,” said Jillian Blanchard, a lawyer and the vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit that supports pro-bono attorneys. Many grant winners already have a signed legal agreement with the federal government, and in addition to infringing on Congress’ authority, Blanchard said withholding those funds violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.  

In the San Luis Valley, beginning solar construction without the $1.7 million would be slower, cost ratepayers more and, in the meantime, require burning more fossil fuels. Eriksen said he intends to forge ahead; he already has designs, a contractor and a shovel-ready location, though he can’t take the next step until the funding question is settled. 

“We’re waiting and seeing to get some certainty before we move forward,” Eriksen said.   

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This article appeared in the May 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Colorado’s rural electric co-ops are determined to go green.”