The U.S. power grid is overloaded and undersupplied — and the Biden administration has just announced a major investment aimed at helping solve these problems.
The Department of Energy has offered $2.2 billion to eight projects in 18 states that could expand and strengthen the grid. The projects range from deploying grid-enhancing technologies that boost the capacity of existing power lines to building brand new high-voltage transmission cables that will enable wind farms in the Great Plains and coastal New England to feed into the grid. stab.
Tuesday’s announcement represents another significant federal investment in the U.S. transmission grid, which does not grow fast enough to bring clean energy online at the pace needed to combat climate change. Energy experts warn that without a doubling or tripling of existing grid capacity, the country will not meet the Biden administration’s goal of halving carbon emissions by 2030.
The $2.2 billion in federal grants, matched by nearly $10 billion in private sector and local government investments, will help the country take a small step toward that goal. The new projects will make it possible to connect 13 gigawatts of new clean energy sources to the grid, DOE says, including 4.8 gigawatts of offshore wind. The grants are conditional for now – all projects must still commit matching funds and reach certain milestones to receive the federal money.
The grants mark the second round of funding under the DOEs Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Programcreated by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. In October 2023, the program, known as GRIP, chose 58 projects in 44 states receiving a combined $3.5 billion. These projects are expected to allow 35 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity to come online.
The newly announced projects are largely focused on a core set of “innovative grid deployment” technologies that DOE identified as further government support needed to see greater adoption. Ultimately, the goal is to “promote a more modern grid, a more energy-secure future, a grid that is more reliable and resilient, and one that delivers more affordable and clean energy,” Ali Zaidi, the White House’s national climate advisor House said in a briefing with reporters on Monday.
One of the largest and most ambitious efforts among the winners is the North Plains Connector Interregional Innovation project, which will receive $700 million to build high-voltage direct current, or HVDC, connections across Montana and North Dakota. The partners in the consortium, including the Montana Department of Commerce, the Colstrip transmission systemand grid developer Grid Unitedplans to invest $2.9 billion in matching funds.
The consortium’s core project, the North Plains Connectorwould be the first HVDC line to connect the power grid operated by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, which covers much of the Intermountain West, with the transmission networks of Midwest grid operators Midcontinent Independent System Operator and Southwest Power Pool, which joining the wider East American grid.
A host of studies from the DOE, universities and energy analysts have identified interregional transmission lines as essential for reducing the cost of the clean energy transition and making the grid more resilient to extreme weather. The North Plains Connector will allow the Western and Eastern US grids to share 14 times more electricity than they do today and make it possible to build about 3 gigawatts of new generating capacity in the wind-rich states it crosses.
Amplification of offshore wind transmission is another key objective for federal funding, given the costs and complexities involved — something another GRIP winner seeks to help.
The Power Up New England project, a collaboration with the states of Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, will receive $390 million in grants to develop shared “points of interconnection” — onshore facilities to connect the high-voltage underwater cables which carries power from offshore wind farms. The project could enable 4.8 gigawatts of offshore wind – much more than are online in the U.S. today — and reduce wholesale energy supply costs for New England customers by about $1.55 billion, according to DOE estimates.
Several of the award winners plan to deploy advanced conductors – high-tech power cables that are lighter, stronger and can carry more electricity than traditional cables — to expand the capacity of existing transmission lines.
These include the California Harnessing Advanced Reliable Grid Enhancing Technologies for Transmission project, which was awarded $600 million; the Utah Office of Energy Development’s Reliable Electric Lines: Infrastructure Expansion Framework, which was awarded $249 million; and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality State Energy Office in partnership with Duke Energy, which was awarded $57 million.
Two other projects are aimed not at the grid itself, but at “behind the meter” applications to help ease grid stresses. The Tribal Energy Resilience and Sovereignty Project will direct $87 million in grants to the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk and Blue Lake Rancheria Tribes in Northern California to develop tribally owned and operated microgrids.
The other behind-the-meter project aims to manage the impact of data centers is added to an unprecedented track to the roster. The Virginia Department of Energy and its partners won $87 million to install batteries at the Iron Mountain data center in Virginia — one of a cluster of facilities in Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” where rising power demand is stretching the grid thin . The grant also earmarks money to investigate the installation of microturbines, solar power and batteries at a data center in South Carolina.
These on-site resources can provide resiliency for data centers themselves and can alleviate stress caused by data center power loads during times when demand for networks threatens to exceed supply, said Maria Robinson, director of the DOE’s Office of Network Deployment, during Monday’s briefing. .
“We might be able to work with these types of complexes to help provide more resources to the grid, especially when there’s a need for capacity” during summer heat waves or winter storms, she said.
And while the new projects take on a variety of flavors, they all ultimately chase a single goal: strengthening a power grid that is central to the effort to stop using fossil fuels.
