Miles SmithThe Washington state Department of Commerce has selected 18 projects for consideration for up to $23 million in grants to make the state’s power grid stronger and more reliable to protect it against storms, wildfires and other natural disasters.
Projects include replacing outdated power poles and transmission lines, installing modern relay panels, upgrading and hardening electrical lines and moving vulnerable power lines underground, the department said.
Projects selected by the state are now being considered for federal approval through the Department of Energy (DOE) Grid Deployment Office.
The 18 applications requesting a combined total of $23.6 million were selected to advance to the DOE for review and final approval.
Awarded projects will receive both federal and state matching dollars, including funding from the state’s Climate Commitment Act. Projects awarded funding will receive a 3-to-1 match. Washington secured its first three years of federal DOE funding through the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants program, which supports state, territorial and tribal efforts to build more resilient energy systems.
Selections include:
- $3 million for a substation build on Highway 101 in Mason County to increase redundancy in the electrical grid.
- $2.6 million for distribution poles, a transmission rebuild and pole replacements on Burnt Mountain in Clallam County.
- $2.5 million for improving substations and infrastructure across the north Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County.
- $2.1 million for undergrounding power lines on the north Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County
- $1.5 million for a three-mile distribution line undergrounding project in Douglas County.
- $1.9 million for the Pioneer substation transformer upgrade and installation of new relay panels in Mason County.
- $1.1 million to replace 7.5 miles of overhead poles with a three-phase infrastructure in Klickitat County.
