Department of Energy awards $2.2 billion to strengthen power grid, add clean energy

The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced $2.2 billion in funding for eight projects in 18 states to strengthen the power grid against increasing extreme weather, advance the transition to cleaner electricity and meet growing demand. power.

The money will help build more than 600 miles of new transmission lines and modernize about 400 miles of existing lines so they can carry more current.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the funding is important because extreme weather events fueled by climate change are on the rise, damaging towers and downing wires, causing power outages.

Hurricane Beryl arrived in Texas on July 8 and knocked out power to almost 3 million people, for example. Authorities said at least a dozen Houston-area residents died from heat-related complications and losing power.

The investments will provide more reliable and affordable electricity to 56 million homes and businesses, according to the DOE. Granholm said the funding program is the largest direct investment ever in the country’s grid.

“They will help us meet the needs of electrifying homes and businesses, new manufacturing facilities and all these growing data centers that are demanding on the grid,” Granholm said in a conference call to announce the funding.

It’s the second round of awards through a $10.5 billion DOE program called Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships. It was financed through Bipartisan Infrastructure Act 2021. More projects will be announced this fall.

Among the proposals in this round, more than 100 miles of transmission lines in California will be modernized so that new renewable energy can be added more quickly and also in response to a growing demand for electricity. A project in New England will improve onshore connection points for electricity generated by offshore wind turbines, allowing the addition of 4,800 megawatts of wind power, enough to power about 2 million homes.

The Montana Department of Commerce will receive $700 million. Most of it will go toward building a 415-mile, high-voltage direct current transmission line through Montana and North Dakota. The North Plains Connector will increase the ability to transport electricity from east to west and vice versa, and will help protect against extreme weather and power outages.

The Virginia Department of Energy will receive $85 million to use clean electricity and clean backup power for two data centers, one statewide and one in South Carolina. DOE chose this project because the data centers will respond to the grid in a new way . They could supply much-needed electricity to the local grid on a hot day from batteries, or reduce energy use during periods of high demand. This could serve as a model for other data centers to reduce their impact on a local area, given the amount of demand they place on the network, according to the department.

“These investments are certainly a step in the right direction and are the right types of investments,” said Max Luke, director of business development and regulatory affairs at VEIR, an early-stage Massachusetts company developing advanced transmission lines capable of transporting five times the power of conventional ones. “If you look at the scale of the challenge and the amount of grid capacity needed for deep decarbonization and net zero, it’s a drop in the ocean.”

According to Princeton University “Net-Zero America” researchThe United States will need to expand electricity transmission by about 60% by 2030 and may have to triple that amount by 2050.

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