WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the selection of eleven projects to receive $34 million for tools to advance a clean, reliable electricity grid run on wind and solar energy. DOE also announced a new $10 million funding opportunity to streamline the interconnection of clean energy to the grid. Together, these initiatives will enable grid planners, grid operators, and utility companies to optimally connect and manage renewable energy and battery storage resources on the electric grid, resulting in a reduction of extreme weather-related outages. This funding will cut wait times for projects to connect to the grid and help accelerate the reliable deployment of clean energy resources to achieve President Biden’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035.  

“We can’t deploy clean energy if we can’t get renewable sources connected onto our grid,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “Thanks to support from the Biden-Harris Administration, we are developing new, state-of-the-art tools to break up logjams to connect more clean energy sources to the grid even faster,  giving Americans access to more affordable and resilient sources of clean energy.” 

Projects selected for the Solar Energy Technologies Office’s Operation and Planning Tools for Inverter-Based Resource Management and Availability for the Future Power System (OPTIMA) funding program will advance tools that help grid planners and operators optimize the integration of these technologies.