Renewables integration steals spotlight in DOE funding round

The 58 projects selected for funding through the Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program this month ran the gamut, focusing on everything from wildfire resilience to microgrid development. 

But, as Grid Deployment Office leadership highlighted in a presentation last week, renewables integration led the pack, in terms of both funding amount and number of projects. A total of 17 projects — and $1.6 billion of the total $3.46 billion pool — will go to projects geared at alleviating the “logjam” currently preventing maximum integration of renewable energy, GRIP program manager Colin Meehan said.

The funding represents the first outlay of a broader $10.5 billion program created by the infrastructure law passed in 2021, and is the federal government’s largest ever investment in the grid. It targets a major barrier to the administration’s clean energy goals: grid capacity.

Applications for renewables integration funding demonstrated an “all of the above” approach to unlocking renewable energy potential, Meehan said, including both technical solutions and business strategies. That’s in line with the DOE’s understanding that both technology and process challenges are likely holding back renewables integration at both distribution and transmission levels, he added.

Grant recipients with this particular focus fell into two general categories. The first were high voltage, transmission-focused projects, like the Minnesota Power HVDC Terminal Expansion Capability project. The second were those focused on integrating more renewables into distribution systems using system management tools.

Meehan highlighted the "particularly appealing" Seasonal Solar Congestion Management Project, which will develop technology to enable utilities to manage solar supply and demand. The technology will be deployed in Delaware, where, the applicants said, system congestion has blocked a large amount of potential solar installation.

The proposal, from Pecan Street Inc. and the Delaware Electric Cooperative, combined an “innovative business approach” with new technologies, particularly “smart devices,” Meehan explained.

In future funding rounds, the office is looking out for reconductoring projects in particular.

“We do want to continue to emphasize our desire to see more focus on the use of advanced materials,” Meehan said. “That includes seeing more HVDC proposals.”

That’s something DOE expects to emphasize moving forward, he added, in part because advanced materials and transmission don’t necessarily require new transmission lines.

The number of submitted applications far outstripped the available GRIP funding, which reflects today’s wave of industry enthusiasm at the abundant federal funding available for energy projects. (DOE’s Loan Programs Office is also seeing a steep increase in its number of applications for funding, from 66 active applications two years ago to 177 today.) 

Applications for the second round of GRIP funding will open before the end of the year, Meehan added, with a special interest in vendor-driven or consortia-based applications, as well as those from small or rural utilities.

‍