U.S. Races to Fortify Power Grid Against Extreme Weather
WASHINGTON—A gusher of cash is starting to pour out of Washington to carry out the Biden administration’s plan to strengthen the U.S. power grid and make it more resilient to outages and extreme weather. The Energy Department on Thursday is set to announce a new round of grants to tribes, territories and 11 states including Arizona, Florida and West Virginia as part of a $2.3 billion program designed to advance a key piece of the White House’s clean-energy drive.
It is a fraction of the amount the government plans to spend on the grid in coming years. The administration sees strengthening the grid as crucial to getting Americans to adopt greener alternatives such as electric vehicles that rely on the network, especially as harsher weather conditions from global warming make utilities more vulnerable. Increasing capacity also would help transmit the growing amount of wind and solar energy the government is encouraging as part of a shift away from coal and natural gas.
John Podesta, White House clean-energy adviser, said this week that the country needed to accelerate work to reach the administration’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035. “We need to deploy transmission lines at twice the current pace than we’ve experienced in the last couple years," he said at an Energy Department conference in Washington, D.C. Already this year, the department has announced more than $1 billion in funding for power-grid projects.
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