Comstock Seed Inc. won a $20,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to install a solar energy system at its 40-acre farm in Douglas County.
The 10-kilowatt system will generate electricity for both domestic and commercial activity, such as seed-cleaning machines, says owner Ed Kleiner.
However, the grant will pay only about 10 percent of the $82,000 cost, says Kleiner.
"I'm still looking for a decade in payback. Then 15 years more to be profitable." The farm currently pays a $250 monthly power bill.
The photovoltaic power system will add to the environmental cache of Comstock Seed, which hosts school children who arrive by the busload to tour the farm. It sells native seed used for a variety of reclamation projects, from road construction to wildfires. The farm also hosts a wetland sewage project. Kleiner is now in the permitting process to build a solar-heated and cooled house.
Only three Nevada companies applied for the USDA grants and only one other company, a firm in Amargosa Valley, qualified.
That's not good considering that 50 business owners turned out to learn about the grant program at workshops in Reno, Elko and Parumph, says
Herb Shedd, director of business and cooperative programs at the the
USDA rural development office in Carson City. Business people are too busy to complete the onerous application process, he says. It requires a technical report that's reviewed by a board of engineers at a USDA office in Colorado.
Comstock Seed failed that technical review last year, but tried again and this year achieved a perfect score, says Shedd.
Kleiner credits his project contractor, Leslie Ames of Tahoe Solar Designs in South Lake Tahoe, whom he met at a Sustainable Living and Renewable Energy Roundup in Douglas County last year.
Kleiner says he had initially been referred to a southern California contractor who wanted $2,500 to complete the process. But Ames completed the winning technical report without charge.
More workshops are planned, says Shedd. The schedule will be released next month. Those wanting grants should get help with the application from a consultant, he says, or should ask for help from a local USDA
office.
