ICYMI: Biden-Harris Administration Launches Federal-State Initiative to Bolster America's Power Grid, Building on Historic Transmission Progress

Building on President Biden's unprecedented actions to strengthen America's power grid and deliver reliable, clean, resilient, and affordable energy, this week the Biden-Harris Administration launched a Federal-State Modern Grid Deployment Initiative. The initiative includes commitments from an initial 21 states to advance deployment of solutions, such as advanced conductors and grid enhancing technologies, which provide fast and highly cost-effective pathways to expand and strengthen the electric grid. The Administration made the announcement at a White House summit on grid modernization, which brought together utilities, advocates, labor leaders, and technology providers to explore innovative policy solutions to unlock deployment. The announcement builds on the Administration's launch of a public-private mobilization to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission lines over the next five years and a new final rule from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that will help accelerate transmission buildout.

The Biden-Harris Administration also announced new actions to advance transmission permitting. The Department of Energy launched a one-stop-shop online portal for projects to be considered for the new CITAP program for accelerated federal review, and the Federal Permitting Council announced an MOU with the New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority to collaborate on the state's grid projects.

Read more below:

CNN: White House to announce actions to modernize America's electrical grid, paving the way for clean energy and fewer outages
[Ella Nilsen, 5/28/2024]
The White House on Tuesday will announce steps to modernize a major roadblock to the clean energy transformation: America's aging electrical infrastructure. The new initiative between the feds and 21 states aims to make faster fixes and improvements to the grid, committing to build a bigger and more modern grid as part of a larger effort to reduce power outages and increase electrical transmission capacity – a massive hurdle to getting more clean energy on the grid and reducing the planet-warming pollution causing the climate crisis.

Bloomberg: White House, States Work to Supercharge Existing Grid With Tech
[Stephen Lee, 5/28/2024]
The White House's latest bid to squeeze more performance out of the existing power grid comes in recognition of the need to move faster, a senior Biden administration official said on Tuesday. "As we think about the timescales, we actually need stuff that can cook right now, right away—very, very quickly," Ali Zaidi, President Joe Biden's national climate adviser, said at a White House panel discussion on Tuesday. "And the way to do that is by deploying grid-enhancing technologies; by reconductoring the lines that we have already strung up or buried across the country."

NPR's All Things Considered: White House announces a program aimed at improving the country's electric grid
[Michael Copley, 5/28/2024]
The White House announced a program that could help make electricity more reliable. […] "The White House and states are also trying to roll out different technologies to get more out of the grid that's already been built. That means making sure the grid can handle more electricity and move it around to where it's needed most."

Washington Post: How a simple fix could double the size of the U.S. electricity grid
[Shannon Osaka, 5/28/2024]
And last month, the Biden administration announced a goal to upgrade 100,000 miles of transmission line over the next five years — which could include rewiring the lines.

"We actually need stuff that can cook right now, right away," Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser, said Tuesday at a White House summit on grid modernization. "And the way to do that is by deploying grid-enhancing technologies, by reconductoring the lines that we have already strung up or buried across the country."

S&P Global: Biden administration partners with 21 states on grid modernization initiative
[Zack Hale, 5/29/2024]
The Biden administration on May 28 launched a joint grid modernization initiative with 21 states in connection with an aspirational goal to upgrade 100,000 miles of existing transmission lines over the next five years. The goal, announced by the US Department of Energy in April, is part of a push to spur the widespread adoption of grid-enhancing technologies, or GETs, as utilities see rapid demand growth driven by datacenters, heat pumps and vehicle electrification. "That happens if we move the conversation past the abstract," White House domestic climate policy adviser Ali Zaidi said during a May 28 summit with utility executives and GETs vendors.

E&E News: Democratic-led states sign on to White House power grid plan
[Brian Dabbs, 5/28/2024]
The Biden administration is teaming up with Democratic-leaning states to boost the capacity to ship electricity through upgrades to existing power lines — an effort to break a logjam in delivering clean energy to cities and suburbs. […]

Advocates for modernizing and expanding the nation's power grids praised the announcement. "It's great that the administration is going to help states and utilities deploy advanced transmission technologies," Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, said in an email. "That work can complement FERC's recent transmission planning rule. States would be smart to accept the help."

The Hill: White House and 21 states to announce grid modernization program
[Zack Budryk, 5/28/2024]
The Biden administration is set to announce a new initiative with 21 states Tuesday to modernize the U.S. power grid, ahead of a summer likely to tax its capacity. Under the initiative, the participating states will give priority to electric grid modernization efforts, including those aimed at increased capacity and efficiency.

Spectrum News: White House announces commitment with states to modernize the electric grid, hoping to reduce power outages and lower costs
[Maddie Gannon, 5/28/2024]
The White House on Tuesday announced a new commitment with 21 states to expand the capacity of America's power grid and modernize aging infrastructure – a move it says would facilitate the quicker integration of clean energy sources and lower utility costs for households. The new agreement, the administration said, could also help stave off power outages during extreme weather – such as the storms in Texas over the holiday weekend that left thousands without power as of Tuesday. With the initiative, the Biden administration is bringing federal and state entities as well as players within the power sector together in support of deploying modern grid technologies to bolster capacity.

Utility Dive: 21 states, DOE launch initiative to spur grid-enhancing technologies, advanced conductors
[Ethan Howland, 5/29/2024]
Twenty-one states will work with the federal government to expand the use of grid-enhancing technologies, called GETs, and advanced conductors in an effort to get more throughput out of the existing transmission system under an initiative launched Tuesday. As part of the effort, the parties pledged to increase state and federal cooperation on intraregional and interregional transmission planning, according to the Federal-State Modern Grid Deployment Initiative. Participants also plan to consider innovative partnership models, pool resources and jointly plan transmission and distribution infrastructure development.

RTO Insider: White House Launches Initiative with 21 States on Grid Modernization
[James Downing, 5/29/2024]
States participating in the Federal-State Modern Grid Deployment Initiative have committed to supporting the adoption of advanced grid solutions that expand capacity and add capabilities to existing and new transmission and distribution lines. The Biden administration on May 28 launched an effort to work with 21 states to help roll out advanced grid technologies.

UPI: White House unveils 'unprecedented' 21-state initiative to modernize U.S. power grid
[Chris Benson, 5/28/2024]
The White House Climate Policy Office and Department of Energy made the announcement Tuesday at a summit with governors, regulators, utilities, labor unions and industry leaders "to explore innovative policy solutions to unlock the deployment of modern grid technologies and share best practices." […]

At the White House before Granholm spoke, Zaidi said, "We are at a remarkable, remarkable moment in the power sector decarbonization journey. This year we will add more electric generation capacity to the grid than we have in two decades," he said as he pointed out 96% of that will be clean. "That's a dramatic moment to find ourselves in." […]

An International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union official said Tuesday IBEW was committed and "prepared to shape the future of the electrical grid" during the White House summit.

Latitude Media: The White House just gave GETs the green light
[Lisa Martine Jenkins, 5/28/2024]
The White House has officially joined the load growth fray. The top line: As the country tries to make the most of the existing power system, today the Biden administration and 21 mostly blue states launched a grid modernization effort that includes encouraging reconductoring and the use of grid enhancing technologies, or GETs. The announcement, which comes in the wake of severe storms that caused power outages across Texas and elsewhere, demonstrates the increasing urgency to arm the grid in the near-term — years before other, more flashy technologies will be ready to scale. The current take: White House national climate advisor Ali Zaidi described this as a "remarkable moment" for power sector decarbonization that demands a "multi-timescale set of solutions" to grapple with load growth.