US DOE picks 58 grid projects for $3.5 billion in funding in first stage of resilience program

The US Department of Energy selected 58 projects across the country to receive a total of almost $3.5 billion in the first stage of a broad effort to improve the resilience of the nation's power grid.

In an Oct. 18 announcement, DOE said the projects would be invited to begin award negotiations under its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program, managed by DOE's Grid Deployment Office (GDO). The GRIP effort, set up by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, makes some $10.5 billion available for projects to strengthen the grid and make it more impervious to extreme weather caused by climate change.

In a call with reporters announcing the selections, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said total investments for the projects selected in the first round would exceed $8 billion when private sector cost-sharing commitments are included. She also said DOE would open a second round of GRIP funding applications by the year's end.

"This round alone is the largest-ever investment in America's grid," Granholm said. "And it's going to enable more than 35 GW of renewable energy on the grid. And obviously it will also boost the current renewable capacity as well, by more than 10% over this decade."

According to DOE, the projects selected would lead to construction of some 400 microgrids across the country. During the press call, Granholm said many of those microgrids would serve critical facilities such as hospitals and emergency centers.

DOE said that all the projects selected include commitments to comply with the federal Justice40 Initiative, under which 40% of the benefits of infrastructure projects are meant to go to historically disadvantaged communities.

The largest financial disbursement to be approved in this first round of GRIP, some $464 million, would go to the Minnesota Department of Commerce for a project to plan, design, and build five transmission projects across seven Upper Midwest states. Both the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and the Southwest Power Pool, as well as the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Great Plains Institute, are backing that effort.

The joint targeted interconnection queue transmission study process would replace the traditional grid planning approach "with a coordinated, long-range, interregional assessment that studies multiple projects at once, rather than in sequential or uncoordinated timelines, resulting in scalable transmission solutions" and enhanced community engagement, DOE said.

Another $250 million would go to the Confederated Tribes of Oregon's Warm Springs Reservation for a joint project with Portland General Electric to build a 500-kilovolt transmission system.

Similar sums would go to two other projects, sponsored by the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, that would bolster grid resilience in those states through microgrids and other investments.

In parts of Pennsylvania and Michigan, utilities intend to upgrade transmission circuits and substations to support reliability in disadvantaged communities, along with deploying battery storage systems and using advanced conductors to increase grid capacity, DOE said.