White House unveils ‘unprecedented’ 21-state initiative to modernize US power grid

The “Modern Federal Networks Initiative” covers 21 states, specifically with Democratic governors: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.

Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, noted that the Department of Energy realizes “we can’t do this alone” and called the power grid “the greatest machine in the world.”

The initiative aims to reduce power outages and improve electricity transmission capacity. It comes as 800,000 Texas residents were left without power due to severe weather over Memorial Day weekend and this week across the Southwest and Midwest, where many Texans could be without power for several days.

The White House Office of Climate Policy and the Department of Energy announced Tuesday a summit attended by governors, regulators, utilities, labor unions and industry leaders “to explore innovative policy solutions to enable the deployment of modern grid technologies and share best practices,” according to the press release.

Thirteen projects have been funded through the Grid Deployment Office so far, and the Department of Energy is “excited” to use the funds and resources allocated under Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, Granholm noted at a Tuesday afternoon meeting.

“Network improvement technologies can cover the lion’s share of the increased demand,” she said. “This is the moment when it’s really worth talking about it.”

Earlier on Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s climate adviser, Ali Zaidi, called the initiative “unprecedented,” saying it would “result in a rapid and cost-effective grid adaptation.”

Zaidi told CNN that the U.S. is “investing tens of billions” of dollars, “the most important public investment in a generation,” he said, “to strengthen our grid to prevent power outages in the face of extreme weather, enhance U.S. energy security and drive innovation.”

At the White House before Granholm spoke, Zaidi said: “We are at an extraordinary, extraordinary moment in the journey to decarbonize the energy sector.”

“We will add more electricity generation capacity to the grid this year than we will have in two decades,” he said, emphasizing that 96% of this energy will be clean. “This is a dramatic moment we find ourselves in.”

The Biden administration has set a goal of creating a carbon-neutral energy grid by 2035. They have taken “critical steps,” they said earlier, to continue improving the country’s power grid in return for Congress’ inaction ahead of this year’s presidential elections, pointing to ongoing upgrades to 150,000 kilometers of existing power lines.

“It’s an inspiring and hopefully achievable goal that we can meet,” Zaidi said of the goals. “We have the technology, we have the employees,” he said.

However, they noted that historically, increasing capacity on the U.S. power grid “has typically relied on building new transmission lines using technologies that have not changed since the mid-20th century,” a process that has taken up to 10 years.

An official of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union said Tuesday at a White House summit that the IBEW is committed and “prepared to shape the future of the electric grid.”

Deploying new tools and technologies means renewables and other clean energy sources “can be integrated faster and cheaper than waiting to build a new gearbox that will solve load growth problems more quickly, create good-paying jobs and lower utility bills” – says the White House.

As advances in technology and infrastructure evolve, “our approach to training members is also changing,” said Danielle Eckert, IBEW director of government affairs. She called the union’s training programs “carefully designed to equip our members with the skills and knowledge necessary” for a “seamless transition from school to the workplace” as the power grid “continues to innovate and evolve.”

The new initiative also came on the same day that new federal guidelines were introduced for corporations looking to purchase carbon credits to offset their emissions.

“There will be electricity shortages in this country during the next great crisis,” Texas A&M University President John Sharp recently said of a plan for the state system’s 11 universities to pursue the power industry as the Mexican border state still sees demand for energy increases as temperatures increase.

Renewable energy integration in the United States – including the use of wind, solar, hydro, biomass and geothermal energy – surpassed renewable energy generation in the US coal-based power sector for the first time in 2022.

According to the White House, the country is on track to build more new electricity generation capacity in 2024 than in 20 years, 96% of which will be clean energy, aimed at accelerating improvements to the electric transmission and distribution grid, “which are critical to achieving the country’s goals for affordable, clean, reliable and resilient energy.”

Zaidi called for a “multi-scale set of solutions” on Tuesday afternoon.

But despite the decline in coal-fired power generation, coal still constitutes “a significant portion of the U.S. electricity mix, larger than any renewable energy source,” according to the Oil Price news site.