This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
Dive Brief:
-
The Department of Energy on Tuesday awarded $2.2 billion to eight transmission projects in 18 states that could expand grid capacity by about 13 GW.
-
The projects include about 600 miles of new transmission and 400 miles of repeater wiring, as well as grid improvement technologies, long-term energy storage, solar power and microgrids. The awards come from DOE’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program; project sponsors will provide about $7.8 billion in matching funding.
-
The awards are part of an effort by the Biden administration to “aggressively advance a more modern grid, a more energy-secure future, a more reliable and resilient grid, and one that provides cleaner and more affordable energy,” Ali said Zaidi, the white one. The House’s national climate adviser said during a media briefing on Monday.
Diving knowledge:
The grants from DOE’s $10.5 billion GRIP program, funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law, mark the program’s second round of funding. In October, The DOE awarded nearly $3.5 billion in grants to support 58 projects in 44 states.
The funding announced Tuesday comes from GRIP’s $5 billion Network Innovation Program, which focuses on projects that use new approaches to transmission, storage and distribution infrastructure to improve grid resiliency and reliability.
The winning projects are:
The Connector of the northern plains Interregional innovation, a 3-GW, 525 kV direct current project that will connect the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and the Southwest Power Pool. It received $700 million to go along with $2.9 billion in cost sharing from recipients. Its utility supporters include Allete, Avista, Minnkota Power Cooperative, Montana-Dakota Utilities, NorthWestern Energy, Otter Tail Power, Portland General Electric and Puget Sound Energy. The Montana Department of Commerce led the enforcement effort with DOE.
The California leverages advanced reliable grid enhancement technologies for transmission project, a public-private partnership that will rewire more than 100 miles of transmission lines with advanced conductor technologies and deploy dynamic line ratings to help quickly integrate more renewable energy into California, according to DOE. The department awarded the project $600.6 million to go with a $900.8 million line item. The project, sponsored by the California Energy Commission, also supports transmission interconnection reform through process improvements, an interconnection portal, investment in workforce and development of educational resources, said the department California independent system operator Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison were partners in the grant application.
Power New England, which includes new and improved interconnection points for 4.8 GW of offshore wind and a long-term energy storage system. It combines $389.3 million in DOE funding with nearly $500 million in recipient support. Project developers supporting the application include Elevate Renewables, Eversource Energy, National Grid and an unnamed multi-day energy storage technology provider.
The Reliable Electric Lines: Infrastructure Expansion Framework project, which calls for the use of advanced conductor cables to increase transmission capacity on existing rights-of-way. It will improve grid reliability in four states and five tribal nations and bring more than 500 MW of renewable energy online, DOE said. The project, sponsored by the Utah Office of Energy Development, received $249.6 million in federal funding and $252 million in grantee funding.
The Tribal Energy Resilience and Sovereignty Microgrid Project, which will serve the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk and Blue Lake Rancheria tribes in an outage-prone area in Northern California. The project, sponsored by the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, received $87.6 million from the DOE to go along with $89 million in matching funding.
The Data Center Flexibility as a Network Enhancement Technology project in Virginia and South Carolina, which will receive $85 million from the DOE and $106 million. The Virginia Department of Energy and its partners plan to use the funding to build battery energy storage systems in the Iron Mountain Data Center in Virginia They also intend to deploy a combination of turbine, solar and battery storage technologies at the Grace Complex in South Carolina, according to DOE.
North Carolina’s innovative transmission reconstruction project, which calls for the reconstruction of a 230 kV transmission line with advanced high-temperature, low-sag conductors and monopole steel structures to improve strength and reliability. The DOE gave the Duke Energy-backed project $57.1 million to go with $57.1 million in sponsor funding. The Lee-Milburnie rebuild project adds 1,600 MW of interconnection capacity in eastern North Carolina, which will help interconnect proposed solar projects and potential wind development, according to statement submitted on May 28 to the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and other groups.
New York clean road, a transmission project by the New York Power Authority, Invenergy and EnergyRe that aims to deliver 1.3 GW of renewable energy from New York State to New York City. It secured $30 million in federal funding to go along with $3.2 billion in sponsor investments.
“Through these awards, the Department of Energy is addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing our energy system, including the need to connect more clean energy to the grid and make the grid more efficient,” Harry Godfrey, managing director of federal investment and manufacturing. at Advanced Energy United, he said in a statement.
DOE expects to issue the second round of funding selections for GRIP’s Grid Resilience Utility and Industry Grants program and its Smart Grid Grants program later this year.
