On June 12, 2009, the USDA issued a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for Repowering Assistance, Section 9004 of the 2008 Farm Bill. Under this program, USDA will provide payments to rural biorefineries in existence before July 18, 2009, that replace fossil energy with biomass.

This program provides funding assistance for biorefineries to reduce their carbon footprint by replacing fossil fuels used in their heat and/or power process with renewable biomass.

For this program, an eligible biorefinery is defined as a production facility for bio-based, liquid transportation biofuels. Facilities can receive payment for up to 3 years. The selection of a project to receive payments as well as the amount and duration of payments will depend upon how a facility scores on the ranking criteria which are, in general: cost, cost effectiveness and technical merit.

Applications for this funding are being accepted starting July 1 and continuing through November 1 of this year. The maximum award is $5 million or 50% of project costs and a total of $20 million is available for 2009, with nationwide competition for funding. You can download the Repowering_NOFA here.