New England states share $400M in clean energy funds

(The Center Square) — A coalition of New England states will share nearly $400 million in federal funding aimed at expanding clean energy sources and battery storage technology throughout the region.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it has selected the Power Up New England proposal to receive up to $389 million from the latest round of the federal agency’s competitive Grid Innovation Program. The proposal was submitted by energy officials in Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Maria Robinson, DOE's director of the Grid Deployment Office, said the projects selected for funding include "transformational investments" in the regional power grid to strengthen grid reliability and resilience, unlock additional supplies of renewable resources, and reduce energy burdens across New England.

"The projects selected today will catalyze nearly $10 billion total in public and private investment to increase the capacity of our existing transmission system by leveraging innovative grid technologies and solutions," she said in a statement. "We look forward to working with the New England States as we support projects that will harden systems improve energy reliability and affordability — all while generating union jobs for highly skilled workers."

Power Up New England will use new and upgraded transmission points of interconnection in Massachusetts and Connecticut to tap into 4.8 gigawatts of offshore wind and battery energy storage systems in Connecticut and Maine, according to the proposal submitted by the states.

The Clean Resilience Link includes upgrades "that would enable operation of a New York-New England transmission line at 345 kilovolts, increasing transfer capacity between the two regions by up to 1,000 MW," the states said.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee praised the cooperation among states to go after the federal funding, which he said will provide "long-term benefits" for the New England region.

"This federal funding award is critical to advancing New England's offshore wind opportunities, improving our regional energy system, and aligning with our Act on Climate clean energy development objectives," McKee said in a statement.

More than half of all U.S. transmission lines and power transformers were installed before 1970, and energy officials say the outdated grid is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, said DOE officials.

“With Power Up, we are shifting the way we bring offshore wind into our grid," Rebecca Tepper, secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement. "We’ve done the hard work to coordinate with ISO New England and developers to ensure we’re making smart, targeted investments to ready our electric grid. DOE’s funding announcement is the perfect crescendo to recent developments in regional transmission policy."

The Grid Innovation Program is managed through DOE’s $10.5 billion Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program. The funding is capped at $250 million unless projects have a "significant transmission investment," as with the New England state's proposal.

In October, DOE announced nearly $3.5 billion in awards under its Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program to support 58 projects in 44 states.