The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will allocate nearly USD 2 billion (EUR 1.84 billion) in funding to support 38 projects designed to strengthen the power grid against extreme weather and to expand transmission capacity to meet rising electricity demand.
Covering 42 states and the District of Columbia, these initiatives are expected to add over 7.5 GW of grid capacity, accelerate the interconnection of new clean energy projects, and leverage more than USD 4.2 billion in combined public and private investments.
The selected projects aim to upgrade more than 950 miles (1,528 km) of transmission infrastructure. This includes constructing over 300 miles of new transmission lines and enhancing the capacity of existing lines by reconductoring or integrating grid-enhancing technologies over 650 miles.
One notable initiative, developed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), includes 84 resilience sub-projects across eight states, which will add over 2,400 MW of transmission grid capacity, streamline TVA's solar interconnection queue, and reduce outage durations.
Another project, led by Elevate Renewables, will reconfigure an existing fossil-fuel peaking generating station in Connecticut by integrating a 20-MW battery energy storage system (BESS).
This funding falls under the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program, which has now disbursed a total of USD 7.6 billion in federal funding across 104 projects. The first round of GRIP funding, announced in October 2023, provided USD 3.5 billion for 58 projects across 44 states. In August 2024, the DOE announced an additional USD 2.2 billion for eight more projects.
The latest funding round was oversubscribed by nearly 800%, prompting the DOE to announce plans for another GRIP funding round in 2025.
