The US Department of Energy is allocating $2.2 billion to upgrade the power grid to make it more resilient to extreme weather and to accomodate more renewable energy that includes unreliable wind and solar. The real reason for needing upgraded capacity is the expected growth in electricity demand stemming from the massive new data centers to support the growth of generative artificial intelligence (AI) that creates text, images, videos, or other data using generative models.

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The U.S. Department of Energy is allocating $2.2 billion in grants for upgrades of the power grid to make it more resilient to extreme weather events and accommodate more renewable energy.

Oilprice.com reports that the jolt of federal funding will add to private-sector financing to support eight grid upgrade projects across 18 states.

According to the Biden administration, the DOE funding is expected to support the construction of more than 600 miles of new transmission lines and the upgrade of about 400 miles of existing lines so that they can carry more current.

This has nothing to do with hardening the power grid in a way that could withstand an EMP attack by Russia or China.