Seventh Cohort of USA Grid Resilience Grant Announced

The USA Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $125 million for the seventh cohort of recipients of a grant meant to secure power transmission systems from climate-exacerbated disruptions.

The latest group of awardees for the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants consists of nine states and five tribal nations, according to a DOE press release. The states are Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Wyoming. The tribal nations are the Beaver Village, the Chilkat Indian Village, Oklahoma's Iowa Tribe and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe.

The DOE has now awarded over $580.5 million under the five-year program allotted with $2.3 billion for improving the reliability of electricity grids against disturbances such as extreme weather and wildfires, according to the department.

Efforts that have been awarded with the grant focus on upgrading grid infrastructure and maintaining a skilled workforce.

"This year, the U.S. has already incurred $15 billion in extreme climate-related disaster costs, underscoring the urgent need to strengthen the grid to deliver dependable power supply to Americans", Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement. "Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and its transformative investments, we are not only fortifying the nation's electrical grid for the future but also empowering the American workforce, all while ensuring that the lights stay on in our communities".

The Investing in America agenda is the umbrella name for policies adopted by the Joe Biden administration to boost the USA's self-sufficiency in critical sectors such as clean energy instead of relying on importation. "For decades, the U.S. exported jobs and imported products, while other countries surpassed us in critical sectors like infrastructure, clean energy, semiconductors, and biotechnology", the White House says on its website. "Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda – including historic legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden such as the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act – that is changing".

The DOE media release said, "As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda… these grants [the grid resilience grant] will help modernize the electric grid to reduce impacts of climate-driven extreme weather and natural disasters while also ensuring power sector reliability.

"This funding will enable communities to access affordable, reliable, and clean electricity while helping deliver on the President’s ambitious clean energy goals".

The grant is funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, popularly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, according to the DOE, whose Grid Deployment Office administers the grant.

Applications for 2022 and 2023 have now been closed, the DOE said.

The DOE had raised this year’s target awards “to better account for the probability of disruptive events on Tribal lands”, as announced by the agency May 5. The DOE in that announcement also extended the application deadline to August 31 for Indian tribes. 

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