Grid Deployment Office Announces $4.6 Million Investment to Accelerate Analysis of Regional Extreme Weather Threats and Impacts on Electric Grid

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office announced $4.6 million for six projects to provide technical assistance to accelerate analysis of regional climate change threats and impacts on electric grid infrastructure. This investment, made through the Grid Resilience and Climate Change Impacts Analysis (GRACI) partnerships, will use risk assessments and modeling to support recipients of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants with rapid decision-making to prioritize investments for impactful community benefits. The Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants are designed to strengthen and modernize America’s power grid against wildfires, extreme weather, and other natural disasters that are exacerbated by the climate crisis.

“Keeping the lights on for communities across the country is a primary goal of the Grid Deployment Office,” said Maria Robinson, Director, Grid Deployment Office, U.S. Department of Energy. “GDO provides multiple financial mechanisms and investment programs to support state efforts, but this is not always enough. Each geographic region is different, with varying extreme weather impact challenges and grid resilience goals. This program will allow states to leverage existing tools, methods, and processes to help identify a solution that works for their individual region, while providing the highest level of community benefits.”

Selections under this program are:

In the Northeast, Pointerra will collaborate with three electric utilities (Avangrid, Eversource, National Grid) and three university partners (Cornell University, University at Albany - State University of New York, and the University of Connecticut) to develop a cost-benefit methodology to determine the long-term resilience value of grid resilience investments in the Northeast. Pointerra will acquire LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology and imagery data and use its Pointerra3D platform to automatically generate a digital twin of select circuits in each utility’s service territory. Pointerra’s utility and academic partners will then use these digital twins for modeling and simulation of resilience investments, such as asset hardening, line undergrounding, and vegetation management.  This best practice approach is intended to be scalable across multiple regions throughout North America.

Also in the Northeast under a separate application, the University of Connecticut and University at Albany (The Research Foundation for the State University of New York) will work together to provide risk assessments and grid resilience investment guidance to several states in the Northeast, with each university bringing their respective strengths to the collaboration. The University at Albany will use numerical weather prediction models to identify key trends across the states for different climate hazards and potential climate scenarios. The University of Connecticut will use an outage prediction model, along with a risk assessment that takes into account the intersection of climate, outage, and socioeconomic risk, to drive grid resilience recommendations.

In the West and Mountain West regions, Baringa will provide reports on grid resilience risks, vulnerabilities, and investments to enhance the decision-making of state energy offices in those regions. Baringa will also provide a current and future state-of-the-grid report for several utilities, which will assess utilities’ resilience investment strategies and include a methodology to forecast financial impact to assets from climate risk.

In the Central U.S., Texas A&M University and Prairie View A&M University will provide grid vulnerability assessments and risk planning guidance to state energy offices. Grid modeling and resilience researchers from the two universities will meet individually with state officials to understand their grid resilience objectives and direct their modeling and simulation capabilities on priority regions for each state. Analysis will focus in the areas of risk assessment, state-of-the-grid assessments, resilience strategy tradeoffs, and valuing resilience investments.

Nationwide, Creation Energy, LLC will develop standard templates and guides to assist tribes in applying for grid resilience grant funds and equipping critical facilities with back-up power. These resources include a battery-sizing design tool, equipment specifications for indoor and outdoor designs, utility interconnection process guidance, and contractual templates for engaging with vendors. Creation Energy will also conduct outreach and assistance to tribes regarding using the templates to streamline procurement and deployment of their back-up power systems.

The technical assistance partnerships under the GRACI program will be managed by ENERGYWERX, a collaboration made possible through an innovative Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) set up by the DOE's Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). This agreement enables ENERGYWERX to broaden DOE’s engagement with innovative organizations and non-traditional partners, facilitating the rapid development, scaling, and deployment of clean energy solutions.

Learn more about the Grid Deployment Office.