What To Know About Transmission Funding
Recent federal legislation includes billions of dollars in loans, grants, and other forms of financial assistance to support transmission projects. ACEG compiled a list of programs established or enhanced by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
For infrastructure owners and developers
Administering Office: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total available: $2.5 billion IIJA
Uses: To support transformational transmission and distribution technology solutions that mitigate the impacts of extreme weather and natural disasters. DOE is particularly interested in proposals for adaptive storage deployment, micro grid deployment, and undergrounding of distribution/transmission lines.
Who can apply? Electric grid operators, electricity generators and storage operators, transmission owners or operators, distribution providers, fuel suppliers, others.
Opens fall 2022
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total available: $2.5 million in loans, public-private partnerships, and capacity contracts IIJA
Uses: To construct new or replace existing electric transmission lines and to support connection of micro grids in Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories. A good fit for projects that are near shovel-ready.
Who can apply? Transmission developers
Opens fall 2022
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Loan Programs Office
Total Available: $40 billion in loan authority IRA
Uses: To avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions by using new or significantly improved technology. This includes efficient electrical generation, transmission, and distribution technology.
Who can apply? Transmission developers
Open for applications
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total available: $2 billion in direct loan authority IRA
Uses: To build transmission in a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) as designed by DOE.
Who can apply? TBD
Timeframe TBD – check back in November 2022
For tribal nations and state and local governments
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total available: $5 billion IIJA
Uses: To improve grid resilience and reliability by providing financial assistance for states, local governments, tribes and public utility commissions to work collaboratively with electric sector owners and operators to deploy projects with an innovative approach to transmission, storage and distribution infrastructure. Project applications include interregional transmission and investments that accelerate interconnection of clean energy generation.
Who can apply? One or multiple states, tribes, local governments, public utility commissions
Opens fall 2022
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total available: $2.3 billion IIJA
Uses: To strengthen and modernize the U.S. power grid to withstand wildfires, extreme weather, and other natural disasters exacerbated by the climate crisis.
Who can apply? States, territories, and tribal nations.
Open for applications July 6, 2022 – March 31, 2023
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total available: $760 million IRA
Uses: To facilitate siting of onshore and offshore transmission. Grants will help state and local governments fund project analyses or participate in regulatory proceedings, among other uses.
Who can apply? Siting authorities and other government bodies.
Timeframe TBD
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Loan Programs Office
Total available: $20 billion in loan authority IRA
Uses: To support energy projects including electricity generation, transmission, and distribution facilities.
Who can apply? Tribe-owned or majority tribe-owned entities
Applications open
For rural electric cooperatives
Administering Agency: USDA
Total available: $9.7 billion in loans and financial assistance IRA
Uses: To help achieve the greater reduction in CO2, methane and nitrous oxide associated with rural electric systems including through improvements to generation and transmission systems.
Who can apply? Rural electric cooperatives
Timeframe TBD
For government, non-profits, and institutions of higher learning
Administering Agency: Department of Energy-Grid Deployment Office
Total Available: $3 billion IIJA
Uses: To increase the flexibility and reliability of the electric power system, increase transmission capacity, and prevent faults that could cause wildfires or other system disruptions. To integrate renewable energy at the transmission and distribution levels.
Who can apply? Institutions of higher education, for-profit entities, non-profit entities, state and local government entities, tribal nations.
Opens fall 2022
Contact Information
DOE-Loan Programs Office | lpo@hq.doe.gov
DOE-Grid Deployment Office | transmission@hq.doe.gov
For more information, view presentations from the Loan Programs Office and the Grid Deployment Office.
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