Grid Hardening for Small and Rural Communities Grant Program

The Grid Hardening for Small and Rural Communities Grant Program aims to enhance the resilience of rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities in Colorado by funding essential power grid improvements. With a total budget of $4,095,997 for 2024, the program prioritizes projects that address climate risks and social vulnerabilities. Eligible applicants must match one-third of the grant amount, and projects should be designed to serve communities with populations under 50,000. This initiative strengthens the electrical grid against wildfires and extreme weather.

Grid Hardening for Small and Rural Communities Grant Program
The Colorado Grid Hardening for Small and Rural Communities Grant Program will support rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities in funding critical power grid hardening projects. The Colorado Energy Office (CEO) and the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) will prioritize funding for projects based on demonstrated need, potential to reduce outages in communities with higher climate risk and social vulnerability, project readiness, and proposed cost match. The projects funded through this opportunity will support community-level resilience by hardening the electrical grid to protect it from a variety of impacts including wildfires and extreme weather. This funding comes from part of Colorado’s appropriation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) (2021) 40101(d) Grid Resiliency funding.
Total Budget and Budget Range
This competitive application-based grant program is one of four grant programs offered to Colorado utility companies by the State of Colorado from the BIL 40101(d) Grid Hardening formula funding for states and tribes. There is $4,095,997 total available for the 2024 funding cycle, which will be open for applications in fall 2024. This represents the third of five years of funding from the DOE. We anticipate three more years of funding. The maximum grant size in this program for this round of funding is $1,000,000. Awarded subgrantees will not be able to expand the initial allocation of the grant award. Subgrantees would need to reapply in subsequent years/funding cycles.
Match Requirements
The grant awardee will be responsible for providing a cost match of one-third of the total grant award. If the grant awardee receives the maximum grant amount of $1,000,000, a one-third match would be $333,334. The minimum total project cost for the maximum grant allocation amount would be $1,333,333, which includes the maximum grid allocation and the minimum cost match. Matching funding can be cash or in-kind contributions to the project, and may include administrative and costs associated with the project and reporting requirements. Grant applicants are encouraged to exceed the minimum match. Cost match must be verifiable upon submission of the full application. This can be done through providing a letter from the applicant’s Chief Financial Officer or equivalent stating the source and amount of the cost match. The matching funds cannot come from any federal funding source.

Eligibility

Rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities selling less than 4 million MWh annually; priority for utilities serving communities with small populationsEligible Applicants
Colorado cooperative electric associations (“coops”) and municipally-owned utilities that sell less than 4 million MWh per year are eligible to apply. The majority of projects must serve a small or rural community, defined as a county with a population of less than 50,000 or a municipality with a population of less than 25,000.Eligible Projects
Projects eligible to receive funding include (but are not limited to):

• Implementing weatherization technologies and equipment to utility assets
• Implementing fire-resistant technologies and fire prevention systems
• Undergrounding electrical equipment
• Improving utility pole management
• Relocating power lines or reconductoring power lines with low-sag, advanced conductors
• Implementing vegetation and fuel-load management

Replacing old overhead conductors and underground cablesView the Application (RFA Document) linked below for all information related to this opportunity, including project specifications, required documentation, and scoring criteria.

Ineligibility

Projects will be deemed ineligible for this grant if they meet one or more of the following criteria:Projects that are outside of the list of eligible project types in Section III(B).
Projects in which the majority of the beneficiaries do not reside in communities that meet the definition for small or rural communities (counties with less than 50,000 people OR municipalities with less than 25,000 people) are ineligible.
Projects in which the main objective is cyber security. (However, all projects will need to follow applicable cybersecurity requirements, and where possible, utilize best practices in deploying technologies under their subaward.)
Projects that are listed on the organization’s budget and that have been allocated funding. This funding opportunity cannot supplant the normal operating budget of the organization.
Multiple applications from a single eligible entity.