ARCADIA, FLORIDA - Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the nation’s transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. 

The $3.4 billion in grant awards - part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act - will be matched by industry funding for a total public-private investment worth over $8 billion. Full listings of the grant awards by category and state are available here and a map of the awards is available here.
  
An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030.  That would mean a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country.One-hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners received Smart Grid Investment Grant awards today, including FPL, which will use its $200 million in funding to install over 2.5 million smart meters and other technologies that will cut energy costs for its customers. 

The awards announced represent the largest group of Recovery Act awards ever made in a single day and the largest batch of Recovery Act clean energy grant awards to-date. The announcements include:

Empowering Consumers to Save Energy and Cut Utility Bills – $1 billion.  These investments will create the infrastructure and expand access to smart meters and customer systems so that consumers will be able to access dynamic pricing information and have the ability to save money by programming smart appliances and equipment to run when rates are lowest. 

Making Electricity Distribution and Transmission More Efficient – $400 million.  The Administration is funding several grid modernization projects across the country that will significantly reduce the amount of power that is wasted from the time it is produced at a power plant to the time it gets to your house.  By deploying digital monitoring devices and increasing grid automation, these awards will increase the efficiency, reliability and security of the system, and will help link up renewable energy resources with the electric grid. 

Integrating and Crosscutting Across Different “Smart” Components of a Smart Grid – $2 billion.  Much like electronic banking, the Smart Grid is not the sum total of its components but how those components work together.  The range of projects funded will incorporate various components into one system - including smart meters, smart thermostats and appliances, syncrophasors, automated substations, plug in hybrid electric vehicles, renewable energy sources, etc.

Building a Smart Grid Manufacturing Industry – $25 million.  These investments will help expand our manufacturing base of companies that can produce the smart meters, smart appliances, synchrophasors, smart transformers, and other components for smart grid systems in the United States and around the world - representing a significant and growing export opportunity for our country and new jobs for American workers.

More details on the proposed projects are available here. Click here for the full test of remarks by The President on Recovery Act Funding For Smart Grid Technology.