Energy Dept. to Spend $2B on Power Grid09/25 06:30

   

   ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- The Energy Department said Thursday that it will 
spend almost $2 billion to try to squeeze more electricity out of the nation's 
aging and stressed power grid, as President Donald Trump's administration steps 
up efforts to 
https://apnews.com/article/power-electricity-ai-plants-data-centers-grid-506e3d2
06871111f15c3c62fc5368be5 amid skyrocketing energy demand 
https://apnews.com/article/trump-ai-data-centers-pledge-490ea7e4c7227d5e550b00a0
056c33c9.

   The money will go toward 31 projects across 26 states that are expected to 
produce more than23gigawatts ofadditionalelectricity capacity -- 
enough to power 16 million homes. The projects will use new technologies such 
as sensors to measure real-time weather conditions to ensure safe transmission 
or direct power away from congested paths, the department said.

   The upgrades could improve power reliability and lower electricity costs for 
about 100 million Americans, officials said.

   "This is a quick way to lower electricity prices and increase reliability: 
using fibers that are already in the transmission lines to analyze what's the 
temperature out, what's the wind out, how can we use this transmission line to 
distribute more power, but safely and only in the right conditions," Energy 
Secretary Chris Wright said in a news conference promoting the grants Thursday 
at a PPL Corp. facility in Allentown.

   The eastern Pennsylvania electric utility says two data centers in its 
territory came online this year and six more are under construction, with 
enough other data centers in the advanced planning stages that its peak 
electric demand could quintuple by 2032.

   PPL said it is receiving $71.5 million to modernize an existing high-voltage 
transmission line across roughly 30 miles in northern Pennsylvania.

   The announcement comes amid warnings that AI's voracious demand for power is 
https://apnews.com/article/big-tech-data-centers-electricity-energy-power-texas-
pennsylvania-46b42f141d0301d4c59314cc90e3eab5, as massive new data centers come 
online faster than new power plants can be built. It also comes as 
https://apnews.com/article/2026-election-utility-bills-ai-data-centers-13703f61d
1397612fd067e69b9093116 faster than inflation in many parts of the U.S., blamed 
in some areas on 
https://apnews.com/article/electricity-prices-data-centers-artificial-intelligen
ce-fbf213a915fb574a4f3e5baaa7041c3a.

   The snowballing opposition to 
https://apnews.com/article/data-centers-bipartisan-opposition-trump-democrats-a4
19be82fb6b32a8fc048ac7ffbd1de3 in communities across the country has thrown a 
wrench into the plans of the world's richest companies and transformed the 
https://apnews.com/article/data-centers-rural-farm-artificial-intelligence-trump
-e5a350af1bc12e6a4f470d3b68be51d7.

   Trump continues to 
https://apnews.com/article/ai-data-centers-trump-election-cd2cfd73e3d41e2baf65bf
82702a589b for data centers, even as politicians from both major political 
parties 
https://apnews.com/article/data-centers-texas-ai-gina-hinojosa-abbott-3624f9a97e
584c46d0ac65ca3870adcf and many communities try to 
https://apnews.com/article/data-centers-artificial-intelligence-nimby-tech-21fa7
b957664d5dca6788e35ab43b88e.

   In the meantime, Congress and some states are trying to push utilities to 
expand their use of new technologies to make grids more efficient and to lessen 
the need to build new power plants.

   Julia Selker, the executive director of the WATT Coalition, a trade 
association for grid-enhancing technologies, said both the projects and the 
scale of the investment are significant. Utilities in the U.S. are lagging 
places like Europe in adopting the technologies, despite federal investment in 
the past to develop and test them, Selker said.

   Still, Drew Maloney, CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade 
association of for-profit utilities, said America's electric utilities are 
making a "significant investment" every year in new technologies to strengthen 
the grid and reduce outages.

   Wright said that work on the projects should begin right away and that he 
hoped some efficiencies are in place before this winter to tamp down price 
spikes when extreme weather sends demand skyrocketing.

   Wright said he didn't know whether the projects would have gotten done 
without federal funding. Many, he said, had been under consideration before the 
grants were offered, but the grant recipients hadn't "quite pulled the trigger" 
on them.

   Projects being announced Thursday will involve component enhancements on 
more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of transmission lines and 
technological enhancements acrossnearly 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers), 
the department said.

   Projects were prioritized based on those that can be put into operation 
quickly, officials said. Money for the grants comes from 
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-technology-business-broadband-internet-cong
ress-d89d6bb1b39cd9c67ae9fc91f5eb4c0d enacted by Congress under then-President 
Joe Biden, a Democrat. The government's $1.9 billion in funding will be matched 
by $3.35 billion from the recipients, the department said.

   Recipients include utilities, cooperatives and four state agencies. The 
state agencies -- in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma -- were the biggest 
recipients, collectively drawing $810 million, with the Colorado and Oklahoma 
projects promising improvements to regional grids.

   Trump has vowed to 
https://apnews.com/article/lng-exports-trump-energy-dominance-offshore-drilling-
f0e0d3b2dfb0f6a3e81cadd2dcd56696 in his second term, aiming to drive up 
record-setting domestic oil and gas production, 
https://apnews.com/article/epa-power-plants-trump-coal-gas-climate-cac1c2c75f865
6d8eaf5f0a240edae15 on power plants and keep expensive 
https://apnews.com/article/trump-climate-coal-revival-9440fa44ad8f0cce0ef50b22e0
0cad8e past 
https://apnews.com/article/michigan-coal-plant-trump-energy-climate-a9bc050527d5
8ed501a5498cbf0411d5.

   The administration also has 
https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-projects-fossil-fuels-d39a
af20d259d15d0777dcaec7aa3524 to buy back offshore wind leases as Trump seeks to 
https://apnews.com/article/offshore-wind-energy-climate-trump-b8be5561c56d8932ef
97fcbec9062fe1 in favor of fossil fuels.

   His administration meanwhile has pushed to 
https://apnews.com/article/trump-artificial-intelligence-energy-data-centers-f21
6660b80f992ae303b348dac0b2f87 and connect data centers to 
https://apnews.com/article/power-electricity-ai-power-plants-data-centers-grid-6
f52e60c4924f634a21fb5f35d68f29b and 
https://apnews.com/article/power-electricity-ai-plants-data-centers-grid-506e3d2
06871111f15c3c62fc5368be5 and 
https://apnews.com/article/ai-data-center-kentucky-uranium-gas-a4cf07af1b6776971
dc5d609c996ca13 into data center and power plant complexes.