Energy Department Gives $2B to Boost Power Grid Across 18 States

The nation’s electrical grid will receive a $2.2 billion face-lift with new investments in transmission, storage, and distribution across 18 states, the Department of Energy plans to announce Tuesday.

The funding will support eight individual projects as part of a wider effort to meet an expected surge in demand for electricity and protect the power grid from the multiplying dangers of extreme weather.

Taken together, the projects will add nearly 13 gigawatts of grid capacity—the equivalent of 6.5 Hoover Dams worth of power, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on a call with reporters ahead of the announcement.

Money for the grid updates comes from the 2021 infrastructure law’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships, or GRIP, program, from which the first round of investments was announced last fall. The combined investments from the first two rounds of funding add up to 50 gigawatts and over 1,000 miles of transmission lines added to the grid, Granholm said. More GRIP projects will be selected later this year, she said.

The investments to be announced Tuesday will support about 625 miles of new transmission lines in New York, North Dakota, and Montana. Three other projects set to receive the funding will upgrade about 400 miles of existing power lines.

One of the Biden administration’s goals was to “deploy, deploy, deploy” additional grid capacity, said Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser, on the call with reporters. “Today we’re witnessing the success of that theory of change all across the country,” he said.

The continental US is divided into three main power grids: Eastern, Western, and Texas. The new transmission lines spanning North Dakota and Montana will be able to support the Eastern and Western grids, improving the reliability of both, and will enable wind power development by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Energy Department said in a press release.

“These projects are game changers for the communities that they serve,” Granholm said.

In California, the funding will allow four Native American tribes to develop, own, and operate microgrids, providing more reliable power in areas prone to outages.

In North Carolina, the state Department of Environmental Quality and its largest utility, Duke Energy Corp., are partnering to reconstruct an existing power line with newer technology to support the grid in the eastern part of the state.

The Virginia Department of Energy will receive funding for projects that aim to ease strain on the grid caused by data centers, a major contributor to rising demand for electricity.