US Department of Energy Plans to Award $4.3 B to Upgrade US Electric Grid

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) is setting up a competitive process to award $4.3 billion for projects to upgrade the US electric grid, which is one of important technology provisions of the economic stimulus package just signed by President Obama.  According to the bill DoE can spend the $4.3 B as 50 percent of the funding for two-year smart grid projects.  The Gridwise Alliance, of which Autodesk is a member as well as IBM, Google, and others , estimates that the DoE funds could create 75,000 jobs in first year of the two-year funding program.

The stimulus package includes $100 million for smart-grid worker training, $80 million for resource assessment and $10 million for the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) for a smart grid interoperability framework "that includes protocols and model standards for information management to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems."

In the grand scheme of what needs to be invested in the US power grid, $4.3 B is not a lot of money.  I blogged earlier about a report called Transforming America's Power Industry which estimated that by 2030, the electric utility industry will need to make a total infrastructure investment of $1.5 to $2 trillion.