Allete, Duke Energy, Eversource, Grid United, National Grid, Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison were among the companies involved in projects receiving funds.
Dive Brief:
- The Department of Energy on Tuesday awarded $2.2 billion to eight transmission projects in 18 states that could expand grid capacity by about 13 GW.
- The projects include about 600 miles of new transmission and 400 miles of reconductored wiring as well as grid-enhancing technologies, long-duration energy storage, solar energy and microgrids. The awards are from DOE’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program; project sponsors will provide about $7.8 billion in matching funding.
- The awards are part of a Biden administration effort to “to aggressively advance a more modern grid, a more energy-secure future, a grid that is more reliable and resilient and one that delivers more clean and affordable energy,” Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate advisor, said Monday during a media briefing.
Dive Insight:
The grants from DOE’s $10.5 billion GRIP program — funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law — mark the second funding round under the program. In October, DOE awarded nearly $3.5 billion in grants to support 58 projects in 44 states.
The funding announced Tuesday is from GRIP’s $5 billion grid innovation program, which focuses on projects that use new approaches to transmission, storage and distribution infrastructure to improve grid resilience and reliability.
Continue reading at Utility Dive
For more news related to and affecting the utility industry, check out some of our posts on the Supreme Court’s Chevron case, the US DoD partnering with Duke, and new reactor construction.
