The money will fund 31 projects across 26 states, split between small and large utilities, with projects varying from physical upgrades to transmission lines and poles to digital systems and optimisation. A full list of selected projects can be found here.

Of the US$5.25 billion total, there will be US$1.9 billion in federal funding from DOE and US$3.35 billion in recipient cost-share funding.

It will focus particularly on “reconductoring” – replacing existing power lines with higher capacity conductors – which the DOE said can expand grid capacity, increase operational efficiency, lower prices and improve reliability when paired with Advanced Transmission Technologies (ATTs).

“Today’s announcement reinforces the Trump Administration’s commitment to commonsense energy addition policies that lower electricity prices and strengthen our grid,” said US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. “These investments will get more out of the infrastructure we already have, move more electricity across the grid, and help deliver affordable, reliable, and secure power that will fuel American prosperity for decades to come.” 

By certain estimates, the electricity demand growth from US data centres will significantly outstrip the additional capacity that the DOE said its modernisation efforts would support. Goldman Sachs estimated that data centre power demand could more than double from 2025 to 2027, hitting 66GW next year.

The DOE said that “maximising existing rights-of-way” in US transmission lines would avoid grid congestion bottlenecks and reduce the need to build “expensive greenfield” projects. It also said it would bypass the “multi-decade” process it claimed was typically required to build new transmission corridors.

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