The U.S. Department of Energy plans to send $250 million to the Tennessee Valley Authority for grid upgrades that federal and TVA officials said Tuesday will lower power costs and ease congestion, though they did not say by how much.
The money will help fund 84 transmission and distribution projects across eight states, DOE said. With about $331 million in cost-share funding, the total investment is about $581 million. The department said the projects are expected to add about 2.5 gigawatts of grid capacity and support about 800 jobs.
“This is over half a billion dollars that is going into one of the fundamental requisites for America to function,” Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly said during his announcement at TVA headquarters in Knoxville…