Speaking yesterday at the opening of Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Fla.—the largest of its kind in the U.S.—President Barack Obama announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history.
The $3.4 billion in grant awards are part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) and will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion. The 100 awards announced on Tuesday represent the largest group of ARRA awards ever made in a single day and the largest batch of ARRA clean energy grant awards to date.
Applicants for the awards stated that the projects will create tens of thousands of jobs, and consumers in 49 states will benefit from these investments in a stronger, more reliable grid. (Alaska is not included, and it’s not clear if any of its utilities even applied.) The DOE provided listings of the grant awards by
category (PDF) and
state (PDF). A map of the
awards (PDF) shows virtually the entire nation covered by some sort of project.
What’s Being Funded
Awards were made in five categories:
• Category 1: Awards for advanced metering infrastructure went primarily to utilities.
• Category 2: Grants for customer service projects went to just five applicants, including municipal utilities and equipment vendors.
• Category 3: Funds for electric distribution systems went to utilities, including Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc.
• Category 4: Electric transmission systems dollars will go mostly to independent system operators.
• Category 5: Two awards, totaling $27,786,501 go to Whirlpool Corp. and Georgia System Operations Corp. Inc. for equipment manufacturing projects.
• Category 6: Money for integrated and/or crosscutting systems goes to utilities.
In his
remarks, the president noted that “most of the projects that are receiving grants involve the installation of what are known as smart meters.”
Obama explained that “Smart meters will allow you to actually monitor how much energy your family is using by the month, by the week, by the day, or even by the hour. So coupled with other technologies, this is going to help you manage your electricity use and your budget at the same time, allowing you to conserve electricity during times when prices are highest, like hot summer days. Through these investments in a variety of smart grid technologies, utilities like Florida Power & Light will also be able to monitor the performance of its electricity grid in real time, which means they’ll be able to identify and correct service interruptions more quickly and effectively. And all this information will help increase renewable energy generation, provide support for plug-in electric vehicles, and reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change.”
The DOE press release sliced the awards into the following benefit categories:
• Empowering Consumers to Save Energy and Cut Utility Bills—$1 billion. These investments will create the infrastructure and expand access to smart meters and customer systems so that consumers will be able to access dynamic pricing information and have the ability to save money by programming smart appliances and equipment to run when rates are lowest. This will help reduce energy bills for everyone by helping drive down “peak demand” and limiting the need for “stand-by” power plants—the most expensive power generation there is.
• Making Electricity Distribution and Transmission More Efficient—$400 million. The administration is funding several grid modernization projects across the country that will significantly reduce the amount of power that is wasted from the time it is produced at a power plant to the time it gets to your house. By deploying digital monitoring devices and increasing grid automation, these awards will increase the efficiency, reliability, and security of the system, and will help link up renewable energy resources with the electric grid. This will make it easier for a wind farm in Montana to instantaneously pick up the slack when the wind stops blowing in Missouri or a cloud rolls over a solar array in Arizona.
• Integrating and Crosscutting Across Different “Smart” Components of a Smart Grid—$2 billion. Much like electronic banking, the Smart Grid is not the sum total of its components but how those components work together. The administration is funding a range of projects that will incorporate these various components into one system or cut across various project areas—including smart meters, smart thermostats and appliances, syncrophasors, automated substations, plug in hybrid electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, etc.
• Building a Smart Grid Manufacturing Industry—$25 million. These investments will help expand our manufacturing base of companies that can produce the smart meters, smart appliances, synchrophasors, smart transformers, and other components for smart grid systems in the United States and around the world—representing a significant and growing export opportunity for our country and new jobs for American workers.
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