DOE Investing $1.5b To Bolster Nation’s Electric Grid
The U.S. Department of Energy is investing $1.5 billion in four transmission projects to improve grid reliability, open access to affordable energy, and create nearly 9,000 jobs. Additionally, a new study finds the U.S. will need to double or triple its transmission capacity by 2050 to meet future energy demands and reduce costs.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, in support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda and work to lower costs for American families, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced two critical actions in its continued efforts to support the expansion of the transmission infrastructure needed to ensure that the nation’s electricity grid is reliable, resilient, and ready to meet customer demands with low-cost clean electricity. First, DOE announced an investment of $1.5 billion in four transmission projects that will improve grid reliability and resilience, relieve costly transmission congestion, and open access to affordable energy to millions of Americans across the country. Supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered through DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO), the projects selected today for the Transmission Facilitation Program will enable nearly 1,000 miles of new transmission development and 7,100 MW of new capacity throughout Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, while creating nearly 9,000 good-paying jobs.
DOE also released the final National Transmission Planning (NTP) Study, a set of long-term planning tools and analyses that examine a wide range of potential future scenarios through 2050 to identify pathways to maintain grid reliability, increase resilience, and reduce costs, while meeting local, regional, interregional, and national interests and supporting the changing energy landscape. The study finds that the United States will need to approximately double to triple the 2020 transmission capacity by 2050 in order to meet demand growth and reliability needs, and hundreds of billions of dollars of cost savings can be achieved through substantial transmission expansion and interregional planning.
The Biden-Harris Administration has taken aggressive action to support these needed grid expansions, including streamlining the federal permitting process for new transmission projects, supporting upgrades of existing lines, advancing long-term transmission planning, and delivering the largest investment in grid infrastructure in the nation’s history through the Administration’s Investing in America agenda.
“The U.S. transmission network is the backbone of our nation’s electricity system. Though our grid has served U.S. energy needs for more than a century, our country’s needs are changing,” said U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk. “DOE’s approach to deploying near-term solutions and developing long-term planning tools will ensure our electric grid is more interconnected and resilient than ever before, while also supporting greater electricity demand. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to bolstering our power grid to improve the everyday life of Americans through affordable power, fewer blackouts, more reliable power, and additional jobs across our country.”