New York Governor, Kathy Hochul has announced availability of $22 million for projects to strengthen and modernize New York’s electric grid.
The State’s new competitive grid modernization program, funded by a U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Grid Resilience Formula Grant, supports projects ensuring the reliability of infrastructure and expand access to clean energy for New Yorkers, supporting the transition to a zero-emission electricity system.
The new grid modernization program, administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), provides funding to municipal utilities, rural cooperatives, or consortiums applying on their behalf, and small electricity providers not selling more than 4,000,000 MWh of electricity per year for projects strengthening the capacity of New York State’s grid systems to prepare for future extreme weather events.
Proposals are required to meet all federal requirements, including at least a one-third cost share, direct and quantifiable energy, environmental, and economic benefits to New York State such as emissions reductions, job creation, product manufacturing and sales, energy efficiency, or reduced electric costs for proposed site locations.
Eligible project types will boost modern, resilient grid technologies having the potential to deal with extreme weather events and include:
- Adaptive protection, advanced modeling, and monitoring control technologies.
- Installing advanced conductors, including low sag advanced conductors, or replacing old overhead conductors and underground cables.
- Using or constructing distributed energy resources (DER) to enhance adaptive capacity during a disruptive event.
- Weatherization technologies and equipment.
Additionally, NYSERDA will offer $3.5 million in technical assistance to develop grid modernization proposals for this solicitation. The technical assistance is available on a first come, first served basis for a one-time maximum award of up to $200,000 per applicant. It will be used to support the technical analyses required to evaluate potential projects, grant writing assistance for implementation funding, and development of a metrics reporting system to evaluate project success.
New York State was awarded an additional $11.5 million under the federal formula grant program and is expected to become available to municipal electric systems and rural cooperatives in the summer of 2025.
New York is one of nine states and five tribal nations to be awarded a combined total of $125 million as the seventh cohort of Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants and will provide 15 percent matching funds through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative as part of DOE's grant requirements.
Funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by DOE’s Grid Deployment Office, the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants distribute funding to states, territories, and federally recognized Indian Tribes, including Alaska Native Regional Corporations and Alaska Native Village Corporations, over five years based on a formula including factors like population size, land area, probability and severity of disruptive events, and a locality’s historical expenditures on mitigation efforts, with priority to projects generating the greatest community benefit in providing clean, affordable, and reliable energy.
As of October 25, 2024, DOE has awarded nearly $1.3 billion in Grid Resilience State and Tribal formula grants throughout the country.
