The Iowa Grid Resilience Fund supports efforts to improve the all-hazards resilience of the electric grid and reduce the frequency and duration of outages. The program provides subawards to eligible entities to address current and future resilience. The Iowa Energy Office within the Iowa Economic Development Authority will administer the program with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which was authorized through the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA), otherwise known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Applications will be available and accepted through IowaGrants.gov. The application will collect information necessary for evaluation in addition to other data to be used for reporting or compliance purposes after subawards are made. IEDA staff will review the applications and may engage outside reviewers to assist and provide expertise. Evaluation criteria will be used to score the presence and quality of desired application content, including attachments and narrative responses provided.
A policies and procedures handbook is recommended for review. This includes details on the evaluation criteria, eligible and ineligible costs and projects, application review process and a summary of reporting requirements for approved subawards. The Iowa Grid Resilience Fund policies and procedures handbook can be found on IEDA’s website at this location: (LINK)
Eligible Applicants
IEDA will accept applications from electric grid operators, generation and transmission owners/operators, and distribution providers. Within the context of Iowa’s electric infrastructure owners and service providers, these will include Iowa’s electric investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities, transmission owners/operators, and rural electric cooperatives that provide generation, transmission, and /or distribution in Iowa. An application from an ineligible entity could proceed through the review process and if it scores high enough, the DOE will make the final decision about the project and applicant eligibility. IEDA encourages organizations not reflected on the eligible entity list to contact the IEDA program manager prior to applying.
Eligible and Ineligible Projects
The funding provided under this program may be used to implement a wide range of resilience measures intended to mitigate the impact of disruptive events, including:
· Weatherization technologies and equipment
· Fire-resistant technologies and fire prevention systems
· Monitoring and control technologies
· Undergrounding of electrical equipment
· Utility pole management
· The relocation of power lines or the reconductoring of power lines with low-sag, advanced conductors
· Vegetation and fuel-load management
· The use or construction of distributed energy resources for enhancing system adaptive capacity during disruptive events, including microgrids and battery-storage subcomponents
· Adaptive protection technologies
· Advanced modeling technologies
· Hardening of power lines, facilities, substations of other systems
· The replacement of old overhead conductors and underground cables
· Training, recruitment, retention, and reskilling of workers in order to perform the work required for the resilience measures listed above.
Program funds may not be used for:
Construction of a new
Electric generating facility, defined as construction of a facility that produces electricity, including emergency back-up generation, solar generation or any other electric generation unit or facility. Large-scale battery storage facility that is not used for enhancing system adaptive capacity during disruptive events.
Potential applicants considering projects related to electricity generation or battery storage are encouraged to contact IEDA for additional guidance on these project types to ensure they are not in conflict with DOE guidance.
Cybersecurity
Amounts and Cost Share
The minimum subaward amount is $200,000 and the maximum is $2 million. Each subaward amount, if selected and approved for funding, is a total of both the federal amount and a 15% state cost share. Applicants are also required to provide cost share to the federal investment in their project. Applicants are required to complete an Excel sheet template developed by IEDA and available at iowagrants.gov to determine their cost share amount, state cost share amount and federal amount. The cost share percentage for applicants differs based on size of the utility/applicant and their electricity sales.
· For applicants that sell over 4 million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity per year, cost share must be at least 100% of the federal amount. Applicants in this category providing the minimum required cost share could have approximately 53% of their project cost covered by state and federal funding through this program.
· For applicants that sell less than 4 MWh of electricity per year cost share must be at least 33.34% of the federal amount. Applicants in this category providing the minimum required cost share could have approximately 77% of their project cost covered by state and federal funding through this program.
How to Apply
· Applications must be submitted through www.iowagrants.gov . Applicants can review each application section and its required content on the Application Preview page and click on each component to review, then use the back button at the top to return and review more components. Applicants can save partially completed components and return to continue their work.
· Questions may be directed to the Program Manager, Stephanie Weisenbach at stephanie.weisenbach@iowaeda.com or by calling 515-348-6221. Questions focused on a specific application cycle should be submitted IEDA at least one week prior to the application deadline to ensure adequate time for receipt, consideration, and response.
Confidentiality and Application Access
Only one individual should be the IowaGrants representative for the project, either the applicant themselves or an authorized representative that would be responsible for managing the IowaGrants account and correspondence between IEDA and the applicant as needed.
The application is a public document under Iowa law. However, under some circumstances, certain information may be kept confidential. If an applicant wishes to have additional information treated as confidential, they must fill out a Confidential Treatment Request Form. This form is available upon request to IEDA. IEDA will make a determination about what, if any, additional information will be treated as confidential.
