The Clean Energy Transition Institute (CETI) is pleased to release the first of three planned short films as part of our Claiming Power: Stories of Rural Communities and Clean Energy project. Harvesting the Sun tells the stories of three Washington state businesses in Jefferson and Clallam counties that have benefited from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Rural Energy for America (REAP) program.  

Solar Economically Benefits Rural Businesses

One of 40 USDA programs that support rural American communities, the REAP program was designed to enable farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses to benefit economically from renewable energy.

Harvesting the Sun shows how Crystie Kisler of Finnriver Farm & Cidery; Ryan McCarthey of the Dungeness Valley Creamery; and Jim Ferris of Edensaw Woods obtained REAP financing to install solar panels on their business rooftops. As you will hear Jim Ferris remark, after he’d crunched the numbers and the payback period for investing in solar, “You’d be silly not to do it.”

Behind the Lens

We also posted a blog by award-winning filmmaker Jessica Plumb, who is producing these short films for CETI, in which she shares her observations about filming and producing Harvesting the Sun, as well as why she engages in this work.

Clean Energy and Northwest Rural Communities

Claiming Power is a companion project with our Community-Defined Decarbonization effort, both of which seek to ensure rural communities are full participants in defining the benefits and challenges of decarbonization.

Last month, we released our report, Community-Defined Decarbonization: Reflecting Rural and Tribal Desires for an Equitable Clean Energy Transition in Washington, a quantitative and qualitative analysis we undertook to understand the barriers that Washington state’s rural and Tribal communities face in decarbonizing buildings and to determine whether clean energy strategies could address inequity in these communities.

Future Stories

Jessica is now working on two additional stories about efforts we learned of through our interviews for Community-Defined Decarbonization. One film will feature energy sovereignty at the Lummi Nation and the other will look at how clean energy might bring economic development to Okanogan County, Washington.

We look forward to hearing your reactions to this work. Please share them with us here. Thank you so much for supporting our work to accelerate an equitable clean energy transition in the Northwest.