The Department of Energy is looking to the public and private sector for input that could help with expanding the electric grid to support large energy users such as data centers, advanced manufacturing facilities and semiconductor fabrication plants.
The DOE is issuing a Request for Information to kickstart its new Speed to Power initiative, which is intended to address what it said was “inadequate” electric capacity “to support the country’s rapidly expanding manufacturing needs and the reindustrialization of the U.S. economy” needed to advance in the artificial intelligence race.
State energy offices, public utility commissions, electric utilities, regional transmission organizations and independent system operators, transmission and generation developers and large energy users, and other stakeholders are invited to participate.
Stakeholders are being asked to provide insight on how to best leverage funding programs and authorities to rapidly expand energy generation and transmission grid capacity, the DOE said.
The deadline to respond to the RFI is Nov. 21.
The RFI comes on the heels of the release of the DOE’s Report on Evaluating U.S. Grid Reliability and Security, which warned that blackouts could increase by 100 times by 2030 if the U.S. “continues to shutter reliable power sources and fails to add additional firm capacity.”
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