To safe federal funding, builders should navigate numerous financing and funding choices associated to grid resiliency and modernization, transmission deployment, and significant electrical era services. Responding to funding calls for, nevertheless, can pose important challenges. Balancing early-stage mission commitments with utility necessities blurs the road between speculating about long-term mission particulars, being non-responsive, and making expensive mission choices. For candidates, a proactive strategy towards the funding and submittal course of could make the distinction between a mission shifting ahead with authorized funding or utility denial.
Targets and Funding
In 2022, underneath the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act—also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation—the U.S. Division of Vitality (DOE) launched its plan to offer $10.5 billion over 5 years by means of the Grid Resilience and Revolutionary Partnerships (GRIP) Program. Administered by means of the DOE’s new Grid Deployment Workplace (GDO), the GRIP Program is separated into three funding classes: grid resilience, sensible grid, and grid innovation.
In October 2023, the GDO introduced $3.46 billion in grants for 58 tasks throughout 44 states to strengthen electrical grid resilience and reliability. Most just lately, on Nov. 14, 2023, the DOE launched its second spherical of funding: $3.9 billion for tasks that may enhance the electrical transmission grid and advance the interconnection processes.
Moreover, the funding goals to create complete options that hyperlink grid communication programs with operations, growing resilience and decreasing energy outages and threats. It focuses on tasks that deploy superior applied sciences—distributed vitality assets and battery programs, for instance—to offer important grid providers that guarantee communities throughout the nation have entry to inexpensive, dependable and clear electrical energy.
The Course of
The GRIP Program initially laid out a inflexible, multi-phased schedule for funding purposes. In part one, entities got two months (a Jan. 12, 2024, deadline) to submit an idea paper consisting of:
- Undertaking overview—mission location, mission companions, and subject space of funding.
- Undertaking particulars—how the mission addresses the subject space’s eligible makes use of and technical approaches, the influence of DOE funding, mission readiness and viability, and the important thing mission administration crew and companions.
- Undertaking impacts—profit to the grid; potential of the mission to cut back modern expertise dangers; mission assist for state, native, tribal, group, and regional resilience; and the flexibility to spur non-public sector investments.
- Neighborhood Advantages Plan (CBP)—group and labor engagement and agreements; funding in job high quality and workforce; development of range, fairness, inclusion, and accessibility; and contributions to the Justice40 Initiative.
For a lot of builders, the brief timeline posed the primary important problem for placing ahead a profitable idea paper.
In part two, candidates had been required to submit an entire technical utility by both April 17 or Could 22, relying on the applying’s funding class. Given the expedited schedules and the intensive preparation required for technical purposes, ready for the DOE’s suggestions was not an possibility for many candidates. Many candidates had been required to incur the prices of creating the front-end engineering design phases of the mission earlier than receiving the DOE’s utility response.
As soon as the DOE evaluations the technical purposes, part three begins by scheduling pre-selection interviews with the candidates to query the proposed mission. Interviews had been anticipated to happen between July and August 2024. In phases 4 and 5, the DOE will announce award recipients on the finish of summer season and early fall 2024, with award negotiations finalizing by early 2025.
The Challenges
The DOE has offered a transparent define and expectations for a full technical utility and the burden of every criterion. The restricted time offered to organize an in depth and correct account of the proposed mission and its strategy, nevertheless, poses some important challenges.
First, the DOE utility requires detailed details about the potential for environmental and cultural useful resource impacts and, extra importantly, the mitigative methods to beat them. Regardless of having a transparent general mission scope, these tasks—so early within the mission growth cycle—might have solely high-level ideas in regards to the environmental strategy.
In lots of circumstances, discipline surveys that assess the potential for mission impacts haven’t occurred, making it tough to organize correct avoidance and mitigative methods. Candidates should due to this fact both commit the mission to protecting measures with out regulatory businesses’ buy-in or have expensive impacts throughout development that had not been accounted for within the mission budgeting course of.
One other problem is figuring out the mission administration crew. The DOE understandably desires a certified and dedicated mission administration crew recognized inside an utility. Nevertheless, the business has skilled a excessive turnover charge amongst each builders and environmental consultants. Given what number of of those tasks span greater than 5 years, securing a crew with the suitable expertise could also be unrealistic.
The CBP poses one other problem, given the numerous weight it carries in an utility. Candidates should present a strong plan that demonstrates significant group and labor engagements with stakeholders—labor unions, tribal nations, native universities, and organizations that work with deprived communities, to call a couple of. The CBP should additionally display a mission’s means to deliver workforce alternatives to the communities inside the mission area.
Lastly, it’s tough to fulfill the DOE assurance that labor agreements have been totally addressed. These agreements cut back the chance of expert employee shortages, labor disputes, or disruptions; nevertheless, given the tight timeframe and restricted mission scope, they’ll add important time and value to be developed correctly.
Subsequent Steps
Given the scope of utility necessities, there are some actions which will enhance the probability of qualifying for GRIP funding. First, between required submittals to the DOE, candidates ought to take into account proactively reviewing beforehand submitted info. Figuring out any gaps and anticipating potential requests for extra info ensures accuracy and reduces the probability of compressed schedules.
By deliberately and purposefully working towards the subsequent part necessities, candidates reduce the chance to funding {dollars}. It additionally permits the mission crew to refine mission particulars, leading to a extra profitable utility and general mission final result.
At the moment, it’s unsure whether or not the DOE will launch one other spherical of funding based mostly on the big variety of purposes acquired to this point. Nevertheless, builders are inspired to contact the GDO in regards to the GRIP program and different funding alternatives obtainable by means of the DOE. Finally, the GRIP program represents a big step towards a extra resilient and modernized grid, benefiting communities throughout the nation with entry to inexpensive, dependable and clear electrical energy.
—Brandy Good is a senior mission supervisor with POWER Engineers.
