U.S. offers $8 billion to modernize grid
NEW YORK — The federal government said Tuesday that it is making more than $8 billion available to build and improve the nation’s transmission lines as part of its efforts to improve America’s aging electric grid and meet President Joe Biden’s ambitious clean-energy goals.
The administration also is pledging to speed up a sluggish permitting process that has delayed the types of major transmission projects that are crucial to meeting Biden’s goals.
The president has said he wants the nation to produce 100% clean energy by 2035. But that goal faces big hurdles. Those include an electric grid that has been pummeled by climate change and which needs enormous expansion to carry electricity from renewable energy sources to densely populated regions.
The Department of Energy said it will release $8.25 billion in loans for developers to improve the grid’s ability to carry renewable energy from the windy, sunny plains to the regions that need it most.
“These investments will make our power system more resilient against threats and more reliable as we increase our clean energy capacity, creating thousands of jobs in the process,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, in a statement.
There will be $3.25 billion in loans available for projects that unlock renewable energy in the Western U.S. Another $5 billion in loans will support transmission projects owned by federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native corporations, including transmission to connect offshore wind.
The need for more solar, wind and wires to carry the electricity to homes under Biden’s plan is extraordinary.
The group Americans for a Clean Energy Grid, a nonprofit organization dedicated to modernizing and expanding North America’s high voltage grid, released a report Tuesday listing 22 shovel-ready transmission projects that could expand the use of wind and solar energy and generate 1.2 million jobs. It would cost $33 billion to build those transmission lines, the group said.
If all 22 projects were completed, the 8,000 miles of wires could enable a 50% increase in the amount of wind and solar energy on the U.S. grid. But those 22 projects represent just 10% of the transmission investment needed to completely decarbonize the power sector, the group said.