Utilities typically are very good at planning. Most have ambitious goals to reduce carbon and strengthen and modernize the grid so it will support an electrified and decarbonized future.

For those utilities in restructured markets where they don’t generate any power themselves, such as Exelon, that means beefing up their ability to integrate resources, enable resources, and optimize resources, according to Suzanna Mora-Schrader, senior director, strategic initiatives, Exelon.

Mora-Schrader participated in a November 17 webinar about the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, along with fellow panelist Karen Wayland, CEO of the GridWise Alliance. Anterix Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer Chris Guttman-McCabe moderated the session, which was sponsored by Anterix.

Utilities know what to do

Mora-Schrader said that Exelon was already trying to identify which projects it wanted to put forward for potential government money before the bill was even signed into law. She said the utility first looked at its own plans and began thinking about whether each project was a standalone Exelon project or one that would benefit from a partnership with the states in which it works.

Exelon is composed of BGE, ComEd, PECO, Atlantic City Electric, Delmarva Power and Pepco, which cover several states.

“We had extensive conversations with our state energy planners,” she said.

That’s because a good chunk of the federal money must flow through the states to get to the utilities. But utilities are the entities that ought to be making decisions about where to invest, said Mora-Schrader. “It’s a point of contention between people who own and operate the grid and people who are thinking theoretically,” she added.

Mora-Schrader advised utilities to look at their plans that are already in place and think about perhaps acerating timelines or doubling the amount of investment. She said that might look like taking a plan that was set to be executed in eight years and moving it up to the two- or three-year timeframe.  Or, if a utility had identified 50 areas in its network that need resilience and hardening, bumping that number up to 100.

Mora-Schrader went as far as scolding utilities who haven’t begun speaking with their state representatives already. “Shame on you,” she said. “I don’t want to leave it to the state energy office to be solution providing – that is something the utility needs to be doing.”

Concept papers due in December

On November 18, DOE announced the first $13 billion funding opportunity broken down into four buckets.

• $10.5B for the Grid Resilience Innovative Partnership (GRIP) Projects
  • Grid Resilience Utility and Industry Grants ($2.5B), which go just to utilities or power producers;
  • Smart Grid Grants ($3B) which go to states and local governments as well as universities for profit or non-profit entities; and
  • Grid Innovation Program ($5B), which also goes to state or local governments, tribes and public utility commissions and should be used to collaborate with utilities on resilience projects

Concept papers, which Mora-Schrader said she believes are a great way to begin, are due December 16 for the first two grant programs. Concept papers for the Grid Innovation Program are due on January 13.

Fierce competition

All experts agree that the amount of money needed to modernize the grid to support a fully decarbonized future is astronomical. While the DOE money, which in aggregate totals almost $70B over the next five years, is a great step toward that future, it is still not enough. The competition for those grants, therefore, will be steep.

“We are going to compete really hard for those dollars,” said Mora-Schrader.

That said, the funding will run for five years so if your utility isn’t ready with a solid plan for what projects you want help funding right now, there’s always next year, said the panelists.

Smart meters

Further, what looks transformational for one utility might be mundane for another, said Karen Wayland, CEO of the GridWise Alliance. She hopes that grant application evaluators keep in mind that U.S. grid modernization initiatives have been patchwork and different region by region and state by state.

Wayland emphasized that smart meters on the distribution system are fundamental for the future DER markets that are being envisioned. In some regions, such as Nevada and Washington, DC, 97% of customers have smart meters but in New England, it’s only around 20%, she said.

“We can’t just focus on one part of this massive engineered system. You can’t leave one technology out,” Wayland said.

The Energy Department is holding a public webinar on November 29 to provide additional information about the GRIP grant money it has just released. Register here.