Grid Resilience Grant Program

South Carolina is vulnerable to a multitude of natural hazards, ranging from hurricanes to ice storms. These hazards create significant risks to life, loss or damage to property, and damage to the electric grid. The duration of power disruptions that stem from these hazards can range from hours to weeks. 

Santee Cooper is pleased to serve as the state entity within South Carolina to administer the formula grant provided for South Carolina grid resilience under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), Section 40101(d). We submitted our formal application on Dec. 8, 2022, after seeking public input about our proposed program and project objectives, metrics and other details. 

The BIL grant program is expected to provide funding for five years. The U.S. Department of Energy notified us on May 23, 2023, that it has approved funding for the first two years, in an amount totaling $10.4 million. Santee Cooper has established the South Carolina Grid Resilience Grant Program (GRG) to distribute these funds to projects that improve the resilience of the electric grid and help prevent or mitigate such natural hazard disruptions. 

Next Steps

Now that the initial funding has been approved, Santee Cooper can move forward on solicitations, review and approvals for projects that will improve the resilience of the South Carolina power grid.

• We have hired Guidehouse, an independent expert consultant, to help develop a Request for Subgrant Proposals that will be sent to the 20-member electric cooperatives and all municipal electric systems in the state, along with any other eligible entities that indicated an interest in receiving it or registered for the public meeting in November 2022. 
  
  
• We are hosting two meetings to provide information on the planned Request for Subgrant Proposals process and program criteria. The first meeting is scheduled for August 22 at 2 p.m. and will be virtual. Eligible entities who have indicated an interest in participating in this process have been sent information and a link to the meeting. A second meeting is being planned for 2 p.m. on September 7, which will be after the RFP is issued and is intended to answer additional questions you may have once you have reviewed it. If you are interested in the RFP process and have not received meeting information, please contact us at gridresiliencegrant@santeecooper.com. Recordings of both of these meetings will be posted to the website after the meetings conclude.
  
  
• Subgrant project proposals will be evaluated as to consistency with the program and project criteria outlined in the program narrative.