- GNA Insight
A Roadmap to Securing Federal Funding for Grid and Fleet Upgrades
February 27, 2024
Source: ACT News
Fleets across the U.S. are rapidly accelerating their electric vehicle (EV) deployments. Driven by a combination of policy, regulatory, and market forces, an estimated 26.4 million EVs are expected to be on the road by the end of the decade, and projections indicate that they could make up more than 25% of electricity demand by 2050. That would represent the largest source of new load growth for electric grid operators already facing concerns about capacity, reliability, and sustainability in a changing climate.
Grid and fleet upgrades are clearly more important than ever, but high initial costs can pose a daunting challenge to even the most forward-looking organizations. Thankfully, federal funding for clean transportation and energy projects is abundant — if you know where to look, and how to secure it.
Information Overload
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) represent the largest ever investments in decarbonizing the American economy, and an enormous opportunity for state and local governments, utilities, and commercial entities to fund grid and fleet upgrades. But this opportunity is spread across dozens of agencies and hundreds of individual programs. From the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to the Delta Regional Authority, exploring the possibilities offered by unprecedented billions of dollars in new funding can quickly become overwhelming.
With so many programs across so many different agencies, each with its own set of eligible applicants, priority projects, and unique proposal requirements — not to mention government-wide directives like the Justice40 Initiative — having a roadmap is critical to know where you’re going and to make sure you don’t miss anything along the way.
A Good Navigator
It also helps to have a good navigator like GNA, a TRC Company and the leading consultant connecting grants, rebates, loans, credits and tax incentives to the clean transportation and energy industry. To illustrate, consider how we might navigate the following funding journey, connecting both grid and fleet upgrades to help a community unlock the full potential of BIL and IRA.
