The Rural Energy for America Program finances renewable generation and efficiency for rural small businesses and producers — and energy projects live or die on production and offtake assumptions.
REAP, administered through USDA Rural Development, supports renewable energy systems and energy-efficiency improvements for agricultural producers and rural small businesses through grants and guaranteed loans. The feasibility analysis for an energy asset differs structurally from a building: revenue is a physical production forecast multiplied by a price, and both halves require independent evidence.
On the production side, the study tests the resource assessment — solar irradiance, biogas feedstock volumes, wind resource — and the system design against it, drawing on data from sources such as the U.S. Energy Information Administration for price benchmarks. On the revenue side, the offtake structure governs everything: net metering, power purchase agreements, avoided-cost displacement, and renewable-attribute sales each carry different counterparty and policy risk, and the pro forma must price that risk rather than assume the rate card holds for twenty-five years.
REAP projects routinely stack the grant, the guaranteed loan, federal tax credits, accelerated depreciation, and state incentives. The study’s sources-and-uses must reconcile the stack honestly — including timing, since tax benefits arrive on a different calendar than construction draws — and the coverage analysis must work both with and without the incentive layers that are not contractually committed.
Wert-Berater prepares REAP studies within the same Reg 5001 compliance framework as B&I engagements, with the energy-specific production and offtake analysis the asset demands.
President, Wert-Berater, Inc. — independent feasibility study consultants since 1998. More than 4,000 feasibility studies completed across all 50 states and internationally, evaluating $40.2 billion in project value for SBA, USDA, EB-5, conventional, and institutional financing decisions. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and agency in every engagement.
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Schedule a ConversationIndependent feasibility studies since 1998 — 4,000+ engagements, $40.2 billion in evaluated project value. Standard delivery in 10 to 15 business days. Fiduciary duty to the lender and agency.