Advancing Rural Resilience with Distributed Wind

AgWind is pleased to share two new resources from DWEA’s 2026 Annual Distributed Wind Conference that speak directly to the future of farm-focused wind projects and resilient rural power systems.

USDA’s Future in Distributed Wind – Aaron Morris, Ready Capital
In this presentation, Aaron Morris outlines how USDA’s shifting focus toward stewardship, risk management, and strong project fundamentals is reshaping support for on-farm energy projects. He highlights what it now takes to build a successful REAP-backed distributed wind project: right-sized systems grounded in real farm loads, conservative production forecasts, and clear benefits to agricultural operations and rural economies. This aligns with AgWind’s mission to provide practical tools and technical assistance that help producers design credible, financially sound projects that truly serve their operations.
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DER-Sales: A New Model for Rural Co-ops – Mike Bergey, Bergey Windpower
Mike Bergey presents a “DER-Sales” business model that enables rural electric cooperatives to sell and finance distributed wind microgrid systems, pairing small wind, storage, and backup generation for whole-house resilience. Using detailed modeling and field experience from Excel 15 home microgrid deployments, he demonstrates how these systems can deliver bill savings and backup power for rural members while providing peak shaving and grid support for co-ops. This kind of utility-partnered approach complements AgWind’s work by expanding pathways for rural customers to adopt on-site wind in ways that strengthen local grids and improve long-term energy affordability.
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​Together, these conference highlights underscore how thoughtful policy, financing, and business models can turn distributed wind into a core tool for rural resilience—exactly the kind of actionable, on-the-ground progress AgWind exists to support.

March 4, 2026