American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Overview

PROGRAMSTOTAL
OBLIGATIONS
AWARD
RECIPIENTS
Smart Grid Investment Grant$3,482,831,00099
Smart Grid Regional and Energy Storage Demonstration Projects$684,829,00032
Workforce Development Program$100,000,00052
Interconnection Transmission Planning$80,000,0006
State Assistance for Recovery Act Related Electricity Policies$48,619,00049
Enhancing State Energy Assurance$43,500,00050
Enhancing Local Government Energy Assurance$8,024,00043
Interoperability Standards and Framework$12,000,0001
Program Direction1$27,812,000--
1 Program Direction supports administration and management of OE's Recovery funds


The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) - which President Obama signed into law on February 17th, 2009 - was an unprecedented action to stimulate the economy. It included measures to modernize our nation’s energy and communication infrastructure and enhance energy independence. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) provided DOE with $4.5 billion to modernize the electric power grid. Under the largest program, the Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG), DOE and the electricity industry jointly invested about $9.5 billion in 99 cost-shared projects involving more than 200 participating electric utilities and other organizations to modernize the electric grid, strengthen cybersecurity, improve interoperability, and collect an unprecedented level of data on smart grid operations and benefits. The Recovery Act allowed DOE to invest $600 million along with $900 million industry cost share in 32 Regional Smart Grid Demonstrations and Energy Storage Demonstration projects under the Smart Grid Demonstration Program (SGDP). The goal of SGDP was to demonstrate new and more cost-effective smart grid technologies, tools, techniques, and system configurations that significantly improve on the ones commonly used today. The Recovery Act also provided funding for more than 50 smart grid workforce development projects that helped prepare the next generation of workers in the utility and electrical manufacturing industries and six projects that strengthened the capabilities for long-term analysis and planning in the three interconnections serving the lower 48 states. Funding also allowed states to hire new staff and retrain existing employees to ensure they can quickly and effectively review proposed electricity projects, supported the development of interoperability standards, and allowed 47 states, Washington DC, and 43 cities to develop energy assurance plans for natural disasters.

From the beginning, the Recovery Act investment was intended to energize industry and help accelerate work being done so that investments would go farther and so faster progress could be made in transforming our aging infrastructure into a system that better supports American consumers and a vibrant, growing economy. Because of this unprecedented investment, the nation’s grid today is more reliable, resilient, flexible, efficient and secure. A fact sheet that describes in more detail how the Recovery Act investment has allowed Americans to start experiencing the benefits of the future grid today is available HERE.