IIJA and IRA funding for renewable energy
IIJA and IRA funding enables renewable energy projects and infrastructure improvements in the USA.
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USA, Washington: IIJA and IRA funding enables renewable energy projects and infrastructure improvements in the USA.
The White House announced that $220 B funding from the IIJA has been released so far. The money is being used on more than 32,000 projects across 4,500 communities throughout the USA as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) both provide funding for clean energy initiatives and electricity infrastructure improvements. Some of that money is now in recipients’ hands and is beginning to impact the industry.
The DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO), which is tasked with distributing the IRA funding, reported that it has released $407 M in grid resilience grants so far, to 23 states, 13 tribal entities, and four regions, including the District of Columbia.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released $10.7 B in clean energy grants and loans to rural electricity providers. The Biden administration declared this as the “single largest investment in rural electrification” since the 1936 Rural Electrification Act.
This money funds two initiatives. The first provides $9.7 B in funds from the IRA and will be administered under the Empowering Rural America (ERA) program to build out renewable energy programs, zero-emission projects, and carbon capture. ERA is exclusively for rural electric cooperatives.
The second program, Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) provides $1 B that can be used to forgive up to 60 % of loans for renewable energy projects that use wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, or biomass, as well as for renewable energy storage projects.
Source: T&D World
#clean energy#electricity infrastructure improvement#grant#IIJA#initiative#IRA