The US Division of Vitality (DOE) has chosen 38 tasks spanning 42 states and the District of Columbia for a possible award of $2 billion below the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program.
Funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation, GRIP backs tasks that improve transmission capability, combine renewable vitality into the grid, develop improvements to enhance grid resilience and reliability, and develop options to climate-proof the transmission system. This system goals to allow 55 gigawatts (GW) of grid capability, sufficient to energy greater than 40 million properties.
The DOE has now introduced a complete of $7.6 billion below the $10.5 billion GRIP. This system was rolled out October 2023 when the DOE introduced the primary alternatives with $3.5 billion in funding, adopted by a $2.2 billion cohort August 2024. Chosen tasks, which nonetheless want to barter phrases with the DOE earlier than locking of their allotments, now quantity over 100.
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“The chosen tasks introduced as we speak via the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program will deploy new, modern transmission and distribution infrastructure and know-how upgrades to allow over 7.5 gigawatts of grid capability, velocity up interconnection for brand spanking new clear vitality tasks, assist practically 6,000 good-paying jobs, and catalyze over $4.2 billion in complete private and non-private funding to convey dependable, inexpensive, clear vitality to Individuals”, the DOE mentioned in an announcement.
The newest cohort may even “improve greater than 950 miles of transmission by developing greater than 300 miles of recent transmission traces and reconductoring or including grid-enhancing applied sciences to greater than 650 miles of transmission traces to extend the capability of current traces”, the DOE added. The alternatives unveiled final yr and August this yr will improve 1,650 miles of transmission.
The newest alternatives embrace six Florida utilities impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“The devastating and lethal Hurricanes Helene and Milton have placed on stark show how excessive climate occasions proceed to emphasize the nation’s getting old electrical methods – however throughout the nation, the Biden-Harris Administration is utilizing each device within the toolbox to verify America’s energy grid is hardened within the face of this problem”, Vitality Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm mentioned.
Unconnected Capability
Final April the DOE launched what it mentioned is the nation’s first-ever roadmap for fast-tracking the connection of renewables to the grid, in an effort to assist obtain the aim of migrating the U.S. to 100% clear electrical energy by 2035.
The Transmission Interconnection Roadmap units targets by 2030 regarding challenge approval time, prices and completion charges. It presents measures for “rising information entry, transparency, and safety for interconnection; enhancing interconnection course of and timeline; selling financial effectivity in interconnection; and sustaining a dependable, resilient, and safe grid”, the DOE mentioned in an announcement then.
The roadmap goals to scale back the typical time it takes to achieve an interconnection settlement to lower than 12 months — from 33 months in 2022 — utilizing the date of the interconnection request because the reference level.
For interconnection prices, the roadmap targets to chop the price deviation of an interconnection challenge to lower than $150 per kilowatt (kW), from $551 per kW in 2020–21.
“Price variance is a proxy for value certainty”, the DOE defined within the roadmap textual content. “Extra value certainty ought to, in precept, encourage greater challenge completion charges and shorter interconnection instances”.
By standardizing deviation, the DOE hopes to decrease the “value variance for common clients quite than for outlying tasks”, mentioned the official textual content.
The goal completion price for interconnection tasks is about at 70 p.c, from 45 p.c in 2016. The goal solely covers tasks that entered the ability examine section.
In line with a report printed earlier in April by the government-run Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory (LBL), practically 12,000 energy tasks representing 1,570 GWs of technology capability have been searching for interconnection to the grid. Photo voltaic, wind and storage tasks accounted for 95 p.c of the queue capability.
“Solely ~19 p.c of tasks (14 p.c of capability) requesting interconnection from 2000-2018 reached industrial operations by the top of 2023”, mentioned the LBL report funded by the DOE. “Completion charges are even decrease for photo voltaic (14 p.c) and battery (11 p.c) tasks.
“The common time tasks spent in queues earlier than being constructed has elevated markedly. The standard challenge inbuilt 2023 took practically 5 years from the interconnection request to industrial operations, in comparison with 3 years in 2015”.
To contact the writer, electronic mail jov.onsat@rigzone.com
