U.S. DOE awards $3.5 billion for 58 projects to make electric grids safer and more resilient
Energize Weekly, October 25, 2023
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has made $3.5 billion in grants to utilities in 44 states to improve grid reliability and to take measures to meet the risks of wildfire and extreme weather.
The federal grants combined with cost-sharing contributions by each utility will bring the total public and private investment to $8 billion.
Some of the 58 projects will enable more wind and solar generation and electric vehicles to be added to the grid, as well as improve the grids’ management and flexibility.
A lion’s share of the funding will go to hardening the grid against the threat of wildfires and extreme weather.
“Extreme weather events fueled by climate change will continue to strain the nation’s aging transmission systems,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement.
The awards represent “the largest-ever direct investment in critical grid infrastructure,” Granholm said.
The awards are the first tranche of grants under the $10.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program.
An analysis by the consulting group Wood Mackenzie said the country’s electric grid is under pressure to retire fossil-fuel generation and add renewables, while at the same time “we have an aging grid infrastructure that needs to withstand severe weather events more than ever.”
All projects have commitments under the Justice40 Initiative program, aimed at benefiting disadvantaged communities, and 86 percent of the grants either contain labor union partnerships or will involve collective bargaining agreements, the DOE said.
For example, the state of Louisiana received a $250 million grant for a project to enable disadvantaged communities to withstand extreme weather events through deploying microgrids, adding distributed rather than centralized generation and enhancing emergency response operations.
The Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tenn., will use a $32 million grant to deploy six new microgrids in remote areas near the edge of the board’s service area to improve reliability and resiliency. The board will convert some overhead circuits to underground lines to reduce customer outages.
Xcel Energy, which operates in eight midwestern and western states, including Colorado, which had record-breaking wildfire seasons in 2013 and again in 2020, received $100 million for wildfire mitigation and extreme weather resiliency.
“We recognize that the year-round risk of wildfires has grown, along with the severity of storms and other weather events that threaten the grid,” Bob Frenzel, Xcel Energy’s CEO, said in a statement. “This funding from the Department of Energy will enhance our ability to meet this rising challenge.”
Among Xcel Energy’s proposed projects are adding fire-resistant coatings to 6,000 wood poles, improving equipment safety features in power lines and electric vehicle chargers in high fire risk conditions and moving high-risk distribution circuits underground.
The utility said it will also build on current programs using technologies, such as drones aided by artificial intelligence that inspect power lines for safety, wind strength testing, satellite identification of trees that pose a risk and modeling software to predict how fires would spread.
Glenwood Springs, Colo.-based Holy Cross Energy is heading a $99 million project that will involve 39 electric rural cooperatives in 17 western and midwestern states to harden their grids against fire and extreme weather.
