DOE to invest nearly $4 billion in smart grid technologies

The Dept. of Energy issued a Notice of Intent and a draft Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) last week that will lay the groundwork for providing nearly $4 billion in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds to support smart grid projects.

The Notice of Intent was issued for DOE’s Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, which will provide grants of $500,000 to $20 million for smart grid technology deployments and grants of $100,000 to $5 million for the deployment of grid monitoring devices.

The program will provide matching grants of up to 50% of the project cost, and the total funding for the program is $3.375 billion. In addition, the draft FOA paves the way toward an offer of $615 million to support demonstrations of regional smart grids, utility-scale energy storage systems, and grid monitoring devices. The Notice of Intent and the draft FOA (found by searching the public opportunities on FedConnect for reference number DE-FOA-0000036) are open to public comment through May 6.
Vice President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the DOE program during a visit to Jefferson City, Missouri. Secretary Locke also announced that he will co-chair a smart grid meeting with Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in Washington, D.C., in early May. The meeting will bring together industry and government leaders to begin a critical discussion about developing industry-wide standards for smart grid technologies. Industry leaders at this meeting are expected to pledge to harmonize industry standards and to commit to a timetable to reach a standards agreement. Additional meetings on May 19-20 will be used to make further progress on a standards agreement.

See the DOE press release for more information .

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