When the Trump administration restricted eligibility for an agricultural- and small business-focused solar grant program, Indiana-based developer HSI Solar (No. 271 on the 2026 Top Solar Contractors List) didn’t abandon that segment of the market. Instead, the company reinvested its focus into advocating for these farmers and businesses.
Credit: HSI Solar
In Aug. 2025, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture altered its Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which provided cash grants worth 50% of a solar or wind project’s total cost, bolstered by the Inflation Reduction Act.
“The agricultural market unfortunately has decreased over the last year and a half, over the change in the administration and REAP grants going away,” said Becky Pettit, VP of operations at HSI Solar.
While HSI has completed projects across the country, the bulk of its output has been in the Midwest, and a lot of those projects were funded in part by REAP grants. So much so that HSI stopped outsourcing grant writing and hired a person to do it full time. The company is helping customers receive their promised REAP grant funding for their projects while the program sunsets.
In total, HSI projects have received nearly $3.5 million in REAP grants. Pettit said these grants have reduced project payback times to as little as one to two years. Now, this funding is at risk.
“This isn’t a topic that can be ignored,” she said.
Before business in the agricultural market slowed, HSI had been involved in educating farmers about solar projects. In 2023, the Indiana USDA awarded the company with a grant to speak to rural communities about PV. HSI employees traveled around the state and inserted themselves in different towns to talk directly to farmers about solar.
“A lot of opposition for renewables is on the utility-scale side,” Pettit said. “We have some large projects that are very visible in Indiana, and that brings a lot of opinions out. Those people that are opposed to renewables taking up farmland and benefitting people who aren’t in the community, we understand that.
“What we’re doing is behind-the-meter, on-site, distributed generation,” she continued. “We show them that solar can be on top of barns, carports in a parking lot of a small business. It’s things they never thought about before, and we see the lightbulb go off for them.”
Now, HSI’s role in education has shifted from a larger focus in telling the agricultural community about the benefits of solar, to finding out what solar can do for the agricultural community. Its staff advocated at a state level by meeting with Indiana’s energy secretary and USDA director.
HSI is involved with groups such as the Rural Land Use Council, which is focused on land stewardship, and the Dairy Sustainability Alliance to better understand the needs of dairy farmers.
“It’s not so much about us getting the word out,” Pettit said. “It’s more for us to understand what hot topics are among farmers right now. If we don’t know what their current priorities and current struggles are, how can we fit into their operations?”
This story was featured exclusively in our 2026 Top Solar Contractors issue. See the issue and full list of top U.S. solar installers here.
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