DOE Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program

Why GRIP needed to be added

Utilities, states, and Tribal nations are scrambling to harden the electric grid against wildfires, hurricanes, extreme heat, and surging electrification loads. The Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program is the marquee funding source for these efforts, delivering $10.5 billion through competitive grants authorized by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Despite its scale, GRIP was missing from FindMyMoney, leaving energy planners without a roadmap for the country’s most consequential grid modernization grants. GRIP awards range from $10 million microgrid deployments to quarter-billion-dollar transmission projects, and application requirements are intricate. Bringing GRIP into the directory equips public power utilities, investor-owned utilities partnering with states, and Tribal energy authorities with actionable intelligence on how to secure transformative resilience funding.

Program overview

GRIP consists of three funding topic areas released via Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs):

1. Grid Resilience Utility and Industry Grants (Topic 1): Focused on transmission and distribution (T&D) investments that harden infrastructure against extreme weather and reduce outage impacts.
2. Smart Grid Grants (Topic 2): Support advanced grid technologies, DER integration, demand response platforms, and sensors that enhance flexibility.
3. Grid Innovation Program (Topic 3): Backs large-scale transmission, interregional power flow enhancements, and region-wide resilience strategies.

Each topic features separate eligibility, cost share, and scoring criteria. FOAs are annual, with concept papers due roughly 45 days after release and full applications due 60 days later. Awards are announced the following spring.

Eligibility essentials

• Lead applicants: Utilities (public, investor-owned, cooperative), state energy offices, local governments, Tribal governments, and grid operators. Multi-entity partnerships are encouraged.
• Cost share: Topic 1 requires 30% non-federal match, Topic 2 requires 50%, and Topic 3 requires 50% (with potential reductions for Tribal or disadvantaged community projects).
• Community benefits: Applicants must prepare a robust Community Benefits Plan (CBP) covering workforce quality jobs, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), environmental justice, and community engagement.
• Prevailing wage and apprenticeships: Projects must pay prevailing wages and utilize registered apprentices per federal labor requirements.
• Buy America: Infrastructure projects must comply with Build America, Buy America (BABA) provisions; plan for domestic sourcing or waiver strategies.

Crafting a competitive concept paper

1. Define resilience outcomes

Quantify outage reductions (SAIDI/SAIFI), avoided wildfire ignitions, improved restoration times, and climate risk mitigation. Use historical outage data, climate projections, and reliability models.

2. Highlight community impacts

Detail how the project benefits disadvantaged communities, critical facilities (hospitals, shelters, water systems), and Tribal lands. Provide maps showing Justice40 census tracts and critical infrastructure.

3. Present a technology roadmap

Summarize the suite of technologies—advanced conductors, grid-forming inverters, utility-scale storage, microgrids, synchrophasors, distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS). Explain readiness levels, vendor partners, and interoperability standards (IEEE, NERC).

4. Outline cost share sources

Document state appropriations, utility capital budgets, bonds, green banks, or private investment. Provide letters of commitment with dollar amounts and timing.

5. Establish project governance

Identify the project owner, implementing utility, EPC contractors, technology providers, academic partners, and community-based organizations. Include organizational charts showing decision-making and risk management.

Full application deep dive

Technical volume

• System modeling: Provide load flow analysis, reliability simulations, and hosting capacity studies showing how upgrades improve resilience and DER integration.
• Climate risk assessment: Align with DOE’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan. Analyze wildfire, flood, heat, and storm surge scenarios.
• Cybersecurity plan: Detail compliance with NERC CIP standards, incident response protocols, and supply-chain risk management. DOE expects integration of the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2).
• Project execution plan: Include schedules (Gantt charts), procurement strategies, permitting status, NEPA pathways, and risk registers.
• Measurement and verification: Outline metrics for resilience, emissions reductions, and customer impacts. Plan for independent evaluation partners.

Community Benefits Plan

• Quality jobs: Describe prevailing wage compliance, project labor agreements, and apprenticeship targets. Partner with unions and workforce boards.
• Diversity and inclusion: Set workforce participation goals for women, people of color, veterans, and residents of disadvantaged communities. Provide recruitment pipelines (community colleges, pre-apprenticeships, Tribal workforce centers).
• Community engagement: Detail consultation with Tribal governments, neighborhood councils, and environmental justice groups. Budget for stipends, translation, and accessible meeting formats.
• Economic & environmental justice: Quantify benefits (bill savings, outage reductions) flowing to disadvantaged communities. Address mitigation of construction impacts (noise, land use) and offer community benefit agreements.

Budget and cost share

Use DOE’s SF-424 and budget justification templates. Break costs into labor, equipment, materials, fringe, travel, indirect, and cost share categories. Document match timing and sources with signed letters. Develop a cash flow schedule demonstrating liquidity to front cost share.

Execution best practices

• Dedicated project management office: Establish a PMO with program managers, controls specialists, procurement, compliance, and community liaison leads. Implement earned value management to track schedule/cost performance.
• Supply chain strategy: Pre-qualify domestic suppliers for transformers, conductors, inverters, and battery systems. Mitigate long lead times by executing framework agreements.
• Regulatory alignment: Coordinate with public utility commissions to secure rate recovery. Submit filings early and integrate commission milestones into the project schedule.
• Data and telemetry: Invest in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) upgrades, and Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) to capture performance data required by DOE reporting.
• Cybersecurity by design: Implement zero-trust architectures, multifactor authentication, and continuous monitoring. Budget for penetration testing and staff training.
• Resilience co-benefits: Highlight how projects enable electrification of transportation, support critical loads, and integrate distributed resources like community solar or vehicle-to-grid fleets.

Advanced strategies for experienced applicants

Portfolio approach

Bundle multiple feeder hardening projects into a single portfolio with shared program management. This approach can reach the minimum funding thresholds and demonstrate system-wide benefits.

Tribal energy leadership

Tribal nations can access reduced cost share and priority consideration. Engage Tribal utilities as co-leads, incorporate Indigenous knowledge into resilience planning, and allocate funds for Tribal workforce development and STEM education.

Finance innovation

Leverage green bonds, infrastructure banks, or securitized cost recovery to raise match funds. Explore pay-for-performance models where resilience metrics unlock additional investment.

Integrate storage and microgrids

Pair line hardening with battery energy storage systems (BESS) and community microgrids to provide islanding capability. Document expected hours of autonomous operation and benefits to critical facilities.

Quantify emissions and health benefits

Estimate avoided diesel generator use, reduced line losses, and emissions cuts from integrating renewables. Link to public health improvements (reduced asthma, heat stress) using EPA’s AVERT tool.

Plan for knowledge sharing

Commit to publish playbooks, open-source tools, and peer learning cohorts. DOE values replicability; offering webinars and technical manuals can elevate your application.

Illustrative project scenario

A consortium led by a Gulf Coast public power utility secures $180 million in GRIP funding to harden its hurricane-prone grid:

• Replaces 120 miles of bare wire with covered conductors and installs distribution automation switches to isolate faults.
• Constructs three solar-plus-storage microgrids serving hospitals, emergency shelters, and a water treatment plant, providing 72 hours of backup power.
• Deploys a DERMS platform to manage 50 MW of rooftop solar, 20 MW of commercial battery storage, and 5,000 residential smart thermostats.
• Launches a workforce development program with the local community college, training 300 residents—including 120 from disadvantaged neighborhoods—in lineworker and cyber technician apprenticeships.
• Develops a Community Benefits Agreement allocating $5 million for energy bill assistance and resilience hubs. Within two years, storm-related outages drop by 65%, critical facilities maintain power through Category 4 hurricanes, and peak demand is shaved by 80 MW during heat waves. The consortium publishes a resilience playbook adopted by neighboring utilities.

GRIP is reshaping America’s grid. Including it in FindMyMoney ensures utilities and public agencies have a comprehensive primer on navigating DOE’s most impactful resilience funding opportunity.