Energy grants aim to harden grid against events like Helene, Milton

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department on Friday announced $2 billion in grants to fund 32 grid improvement projects intended to protect against extreme weather and increase grid capacity.

The projects span 42 states and the District of Columbia and support activities such as mitigating wildfire risk and upgrading aging infrastructure. The department estimated that they would create nearly 6,000 jobs, with more than 80 percent of those jobs using International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers labor. The projects would also add 7.5 gigawatts of grid capacity, which the department said would speed up interconnection for new clean energy projects.

President Joe Biden previously announced six of the projects, which will be located in communities impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton, during his visit to Florida to survey damage on Oct. 13.

Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said on a call with reporters that through these projects, the department “is investing in resilience, which means we’re supporting communities before, during and after wildfires and storms and heat waves and other extreme weather.”

“The funding couldn’t come at a more critical time because energy demand, as we know, is rising nationwide and it is straining our outdated grid infrastructure,” said Granholm. “And as climate change worsens, we’re seeing more frequent and devastating storms like Helene and Milton.”

The largest of the latest tranche of grants is $250 million to the Tennessee Valley Authority, which, along with project partners, will conduct 84 resilience projects across eight states. These include managing vegetation, installing advanced control and hardening to make local distribution systems more resilient to extreme weather.

A consortium of 12 not-for-profit rural utilities, led by the Georgia Transmission Corporation, will receive $98 million to deploy advanced overhead conducts that will increase electric transfer capacity.

And the Arizona Public Service Company will receive two grants totaling $70 million to protect communities and electrical infrastructure from wildfires and deploy microgrids in vulnerable areas to enhance energy reliability.

This is the third announcement of grants distributed through the department’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program, which was given $10.5 billion through the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. The department has announced $7.6 billion in funding through the GRIP program to date and expects to launch another round of funding in 2025.

Under the law, 30% of the funding is required to go to small utilities, and the grant distribution complies with the Biden executive order that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments in clean energy go to disadvantaged communities.

In August, the Energy Department announced $2.2 billion for eight projects, and in October 2023 it announced $3.5 billion for 58 projects. Senior administration officials said that of the 66 projects previously announced, it has finished contracts and done full award and obligation of funds for 53.

Energy demand has begun to rise in recent years after previously remaining flat for decades. This is because of increased electrification, such as with electric vehicles and heat pumps, and greater demand from data centers and the manufacturing sectors.

White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said the extreme weather over the past few weeks demonstrates the need to upgrade infrastructure, and energy infrastructure in particular, in order to both meet demand and address the risks presented by climate change.

“We’ve got 450,000 miles of transmission lines, 6,000 power plants, and so much of that was built decades ago, if not over 100 years ago,” said Zaidi.

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