The United States will invest $1.3 billion in clean energy transportation

(CNN) — Government Joe Biden It announced it would allocate $1.3 billion in federal funds to help build three massive new transmission lines in the Southwest and New England, in an effort to improve America’s power grid and bring more clean energy to homes and businesses across the country.

The lines will be extended in the following sections:

• From Arizona to New Mexico.
• Another from Nevada to Utah.
• The third will cross Vermont and New Hampshire and reach Canada.

The lines will bring a significant amount of new Canadian wind, solar and hydroelectric power to the grid, adding about 3.5 gigawatts of additional electrical capacity to the grid, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and White House National Climate Advisor Ali Al-Zaidi said at a news conference. Enough to power about 3 million homes.

However, the Department of Energy concluded that the United States needs to add about 30 gigawatts of additional interregional capacity to its grid. While the three projects announced Monday are being built with money from the bipartisan infrastructure bill, paying for more could be a challenge with a divided Congress.

Granholm said a recent report from the Department of Energy found that they need to “seriously evolve transmission to improve reliability, flexibility and, of course, reduce energy costs and relieve congestion on the grid. This is exactly what they are after.” Three projects we selected.

Several attempts to build a new electric transmission in New England and connect the region to Canada’s hydroelectric resources have failed in the past decade, due to local opposition from both environmental groups and landowners. But Al-Zaidi said the projects were also selected with a focus on building out existing rights-of-way and adding capacity to existing lines to try to alleviate concerns.

“I think the approach of finding existing rights-of-way or creative rights-of-way that are less disruptive is one that we see successful across the country,” Al-Zaidi told reporters, referring to a transmission line in the Midwest. It is being built through existing railway infrastructure.

“One of the things we are looking at with developers, and are eager to be partners in, is finding conflict-free ways to deliver low-cost energy to consumers who are excited to see that translate into lower bills.” , detained.

Construction on the Southwest lines will begin in 2025. The New England project, which requires building and burying an underground transmission cable, will begin in 2026. Depending on construction timelines, the projects could be operational in 2027 or 2028.