DOE Awards $371M To Boost Permitting, Local Benefits From Transmission Projects
Most of the grants support projects that give communities tangible benefits from transmission development, said Maria Robinson, director of DOE’s Grid Deployment Office.
According to Utility Dive, the Department of Energy is giving up to $371 million mainly to community projects in an effort to provide local benefits from 16 under-development interstate transmission lines, DOE said Wednesday.
The funding marks the first round of grants to be issued under the $760 million Transmission Siting and Economic Development program, which was created through the Inflation Reduction Act, according to Maria Robinson, director of DOE’s Grid Deployment Office.
The program offers grants to support economic development in communities affected by transmission lines and for permitting by state and local agencies.
The program helps foster transmission development “by getting communities really invested in the idea of transmission, by helping them see tangible effects through economic development,” Robinson said during a media briefing. “Sometimes folks think about transmission projects as providing economic development in the short term, the construction piece, but these projects … are really ensuring sustained economic development.”
DOE selected 16 community projects and four permitting-related projects in its initial funding under the program. The department didn’t say which transmission projects were related to the grants.