Days before Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) has announced US$22.92 billion in loans across eight projects.
The DOE’s LPO announced the US$22.92 billion in conditional commitments through the Title 17 Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) program on 16 January. The eight projects will support transmission, clean generation, energy storage, grid modernisation, and gas pipeline investments. The chart below includes further details, with links to the individual press releases.
| Project | Amount | States | No. of customers impacted |
| PacificCorp Western Interconnected Renewable Energy | US$3.52 billion | California, Idaho, Oregon and Utah | 2.1 million |
| DTE Gas Clean Energy | US$1.64 billion | Michigan | 1.3 million |
| DTE Electric Clean Energy | US$7.17 billion | Michigan | 2.3 million |
| Interstate Power and Light Clean Energy Blueprint Projects | US$1.43 billion | Iowa | 500,000 |
| Wisconsin Power and Light Clean Energy Blueprint Projects | US$1.62 billion | Wisconsin | 500,000 |
| Consumers Energy Clean Energy | US$5.23 billion | Michigan | 3.1 million |
| Jersey Central Power & Light Transmission Projects | US$710 million | New Jersey | 1.2 million |
| AEP Transmission Projects | US$1.6 billion | Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia | 3.78 million |
Four of the funded projects will directly support battery energy storage system (BESS) projects.
Interstate Power and Light Clean Energy Blueprint Projects from Alliant Energy supporting Iowa will involve multiple BESS projects.
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In 2023, Alliant retired a major coal plant in Iowa and plans to cease burning coal at its coal-fired facility in Wisconsin before 2030. The company has plans to replace the coal generation with cleaner power, consistent with its Clean Energy Blueprint and Clean Energy Vision goals.
Alliant’s Clean Energy Vision includes goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from utility operations by 50% by 2030 (from 2005 levels), cut electric utility water use by 75%, and fully electrify its light-duty fleet. By 2040, the plan is to eliminate coal from its generation fleet, aiming to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Also from Alliant is the Wisconsin Power and Light Clean Energy Blueprint Projects supporting Wisconsin. If approved, the loan from the DOE would finance multiple clean energy and BESS projects. Further information regarding details of these projects has not been provided at the time of publication.
The DTE Electric Clean Energy project from Michigan utility DTE Energy subsidiary DTE Clean Energy would see its loan used to install thousands of MWs of renewable energy generation and storage.
LPO performed an eligibility assessment and environmental review on DTE Electric’s Trenton Channel BESS project. The office confirmed that the project met all program eligibility requirements for inclusion in the guaranteed loan facility.
The fourth project directly supporting battery storage installation is the Consumers Energy Clean Energy Project from Michigan utility Consumers Energy. The utility submitted its loan application to the LPO in December 2023.
The CE Clean Energy project would see US$5.23 billion of investments through 2031 for solar generation, wind generation, virtual power plants (VPP), legacy natural gas pipeline replacement and battery storage.
Consumers Energy plans to retire its remaining three coal facilities this year to help it achieve its goal of using 90% clean energy resources by 2040.
EIR projects must also involve investments relating to existing energy infrastructure. As such, projects can be at various stages of execution, providing the utility borrowers mentioned more flexibility in utilising the funds.
The DOE and its LPO are continuing and likely nearing the end of a trend of soaring grant and loan activity after Donald Trump’s second term election, as reported by Energy-storage.news (Premium access article).
The fate of the LPO over the next four years is uncertain. In December, the DOE released its draft Energy Storage Strategy and Roadmap (SRM), a plan providing strategic direction and opportunities to optimise DOE’s energy storage investments ahead of the incoming Trump administration.
Speaking anonymously with Energy-Storage.news in December, a US political analyst said: “Trump has made it clear he will clamp down on DOE and LPO activity, so they are clearly getting everything out the door while they can.”
“Trump thinks he can use impoundment to not disburse funds which have been ordered to be disbursed by Congress. That has not held up in court in the past, we’ll see this time. I’m not convinced he’ll be able to do that.”
The president-elect has selected oil industry executive Chris Wright to replace Jennifer Granholm as the US energy secretary. Wright has no political experience and famously said there is no climate crisis or an energy transition.
An up-to-date list of all LPO projects with utility borrowers can be found here (DOE official site).
