WASHINGTON, D.C.-- The Biden-Harris Administration through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking public input on the structure of an approximately $2.3 billion grant program to strengthen and modernize America's power grid.  

Power outages from severe weather have doubled over the past two decades across the U.S. and the frequency and length of power failures reached their highest levels since reliability tracking began in 2013.

President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law program, Preventing Outages and Enhancing the Resilience of the Electric Grid, should provide grants based on a formula that includes, among other things, population size, land area, probability and severity of disruptive events, and a locality's historical expenditures on mitigation efforts.

Grid modernization activities could include:

• Utility pole upkeep and removal of trees and other vegetation affecting grid performance
• Undergrounding electrical equipment
• Relocating or reconductoring powerlines
• Improvements to make the grid resistant to extreme weather
• Increasing fire resistant components
• Implementing monitoring, controls, and advanced modeling for real-time situational awareness
• Integrating distributed energy resources like microgrids and energy storage

The Building a Better Grid Initiative, also enabled by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is working to catalyze the nationwide development of new and upgraded electric transmission lines.

Through the Building a Better Grid Initiative, DOE is deploying more than $20 billion in federal financing tools, including through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's new $2.5 billion Transmission Facilitation Program, $3 billion expansion of the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, and more than $10 billion in grants for States, Tribes, and utilities to enhance grid resilience and prevent power outages, and through existing tools, including the more than $3 billion Western Area Power Administration Transmission Infrastructure Program, and a number of loan guarantee programs through the Loan Programs Office, DOE said in a press release.

The program is part of President Biden's goal of a national grid run on a 100% clean electricity by 2035


Source: The United States Department of Energy (DOE)