Naperville awarded more than $1.1 million in federal funding to boost energy grid capacity
Over the next few years, Naperville’s energy grid will see strides in efficiency and resiliency thanks to a $1.1 million federal grant announced this week.
The funding is expected to boost the capacity of Naperville’s power delivery system by more effectively using energy generated — and stored — within the city. In doing so, Naperville hopes to augment its power supply, facilitate an energy portfolio that makes the best use of clean resources available and respond faster to real-time electricity needs, officials said.
The grant was awarded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program. A $10.5 billion venture, GRIP was established by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allotted $550 billion in federal funding towards roads, bridges, mass transit, broadband — and grid resilience.
The Department of Energy announced the initial wave of GRIP grants this week. First round funds — an investment of up to $3.46 billion — will finance 58 projects across 44 states. Of those, two are in Illinois: Naperville and Chicago-based ComEd, which received $50 million in federal funding.
Naperville’s grant is $1,116,174.
In a statement Friday, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, hailed Illinois’ inclusion in the GRIP program.
“I’m proud to see that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is continuing to deliver results for Illinois,” Foster said in the statement.
Naperville’s slice of GRIP dollars will go to creating a system that can hone in on small-scale sources of electricity, officials said. These assets fall under an approach to energy supply known as distributed generation.
Distributed generation refers to a variety of technologies, often renewable sources like solar panels or batteries in electric vehicles, which generate electricity near the point of use, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This approach differs from the standard, large-scale generation that happens at a power plant, for example, where a centralized energy supply is transported over a distance to consumers.
Smaller, distributed energy resources can be managed separately, or they can be pulled together in a microgrid. The latter is what Naperville is looking to do.
Through its GRIP grant, the city will implement what’s called a “distributed energy resource management system.” Essentially, it’s a software program that will help the city manage distributed resources together rather than individually — a more efficient process.
“It allows us to see everything as it’s happening, instead of taking one system at a time that has data that’s an hour old,” said Brian Groth, Naperville’s electric utility director. “It brings all the information to use in one pane of glass.”
Naperville stands to reap several benefits from the technology, Groth says.
The first is a diversified energy portfolio. Once manageable as a whole, distributed resources can be folded into a larger electric grid, which, in Naperville’s case, is currently reliant on coal. By integrating distribution generation, however, the city would have a larger variety of resources at its disposal.
Distributed generation assets are also more resilient to severe weather, experts say. Because they independently supplement the central power grid, these smaller scale resources can serve as a backup during major outages.
They likewise come in handy when consumers’ demand for electricity is particularly steep, by storing energy when renewable sources are generating lots of electricity — solar panels on a hot day, for instance — and discharging it during peak demand, according to the International Energy Agency.
As for consumers, a more efficient grid means lower electricity bills, Groth said.
Naperville plans to deploy federal funds awarded this week over the next three to four years. Groth said the city is already working on several upgrades to its electric utility separate from the work made possible by the grant. As soon as those improvements are completed, the city will turn its focus to resource management.
Though the venture will take some time to see through, Groth said, “It’s exciting.”
“I would say that this is very cutting edge,” he said. “This is something that’s going to bring together technology and field work that we’ve been working on for a long time.”
