Planting the Future: Rural Energy Funding Helps a Nursery Thrive

By Val Ankeny

Renewable energy projects often require a meaningful investment, but the long-term payoff can be transformative. For local businesses like Nebraska’s Harmony Nursery, the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) can help them take this leap of faith.

Administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), REAP helps agricultural producers and rural small businesses reduce energy costs and improve energy efficiency. Through renewable energy grants and loans, REAP makes it more feasible to pursue projects like solar installations, efficient heating and cooling systems, and energy-saving building improvements. These investments not only reduce monthly expenses, they boost long-term sustainability.

Jenni Harrington, owner of Harmony Nursery, knows the firsthand impact renewable energy can have on a small business. Her nursery is a year-round operation. In the spring, customers travel for vibrant annuals. In the summer, the 500 different varieties of field-grown daylilies attract travelers from out of state. The business also offers landscape design, perennials, trees, and shrubs, and hosts community events like yoga sessions and container-planting workshops. In the winter, fresh greenery and wreaths keep the doors open and the spirit of the season alive.

All of that activity requires energy, especially for greenhouses, lighting, and operations.

“Less overhead causes you to have a better bottom line, and that is exactly what solar helped us achieve,” she said.

In 2016, Harmony Nursery received a $17,794 REAP Renewable Energy Systems grant, which helped fund a 25-kilowatt solar array for the business. The project combined the REAP grant with about $20,000 in federal clean energy tax credits and a $50,000 low-interest loan to finance the total project. The loan’s 10-year term made the project feasible, and today the system has nearly eliminated the nursery’s electric bill.

“The savings are huge. We hardly have an electric bill. I can’t say enough good things about solar,” Jenni said.