The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a federal law enacted on November 15, 2021. The $1.2 trillion bill aims to improve a wide variety of national infrastructure, including the electric grid, transportation system, clean water, and broadband development.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law contains a variety of grants available for promoting a wide range of clean energy solutions, including the build-out of a new nationwide electric vehicle (EV) public charging station network, local EV public charging stations, school and transit bus electrification, grid resilience and microgrid investments, clean hydrogen production, and even demand response.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act are tied together in the public eye, as both were results of President Joe Biden’s job creation initiatives. 

The bills do have some overlap in the areas they cover – both, for instance, contain funding opportunities for clean energy and EVs. The key difference centers on the funding mechanisms each employs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law contains grants – in contrast, the Inflation Reduction Act mainly incentivizes clean energy deployment and EV purchases using federal tax credits. 

It’s important to understand that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law makes a large amount of federal grant money available on a competitive basis for the build-out of EV public charging stations, school and transit bus electrification, and grid resilience projects that complement the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law supports the growth of demand response programs. The law amended the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) to include language encouraging state utility regulators to investigate whether existing state tariffs and programs sufficiently support customer demand response programs. Several state regulators are now considering the following:

• New programs and opportunities that could be implemented to promote demand response practices and reduce electricity consumption during unusually high demand periods
• The targeted use of demand response and program participant compensation
• New standards and systems needed to enable demand response
• Identification of existing market barriers to greater demand response adoption and management

Enel has a long track record of partnering with our commercial and industrial customers to advocate for new and improved demand response programs. Let us know if you believe there’s an opportunity to create or update your local demand response program. Contact our team today.

There are multiple Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provisions to advance the electrification of transportation. For example:

• The Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean School Bus Program” includes funding that local school districts can apply for to electrify their school bus fleets.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration’s “Low and No Emission Vehicle Program” and the “Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities Program” include funding that local transit agencies can apply for to electrify transit bus operations.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration’s “National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program” allocates federal funding to state transportation agencies that the states then use to solicit projects from both public and private developers to build out and operate a nationwide public EV charging network along a state’s highways.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration’s “Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program” offers funding on a competitive basis to public and private developers to construct and operate publicly accessible EV charging and alternative fueling infrastructure in the local places where people live and work.

If you are interested in owning or operating an EV public charging station or electrifying a school or transit bus fleet, we can assist. Contact our team today.

As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office is administering the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program to fund projects that enhance grid flexibility and improve the resilience of the power system. This program includes competitive grants for constructing microgrid projects involving distributed energy resources like EVs, solar, energy storage, and more.

We work with customers every day to design, build and operate microgrids that ensure local grid resilience and reliability – and save money too! Download our eBook to learn more about evaluating your energy resilience needs.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included funding to establish “Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs.” The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations is tasked with establishing six to ten regional clean hydrogen hubs across America. These hubs will receive federal funding meant to create networks of hydrogen producers, consumers, and local connective infrastructure to accelerate the use of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier that can deliver or store tremendous amounts of energy.

Enel is developing green hydrogen production projects, leveraging our experience as a large-scale wind and solar project developer. If your business operations are hard to electrify, using green hydrogen instead might be the key to your decarbonization strategy. Contact our team to learn more.

For the entire United States, funding is available for energy and transportation electrification projects that can provide you with benefits. Enel North America can work with you to implement technologies aligned with your specific energy roadmap and goals. 

In general, it’s best to take action quickly. While every grant program has a different deadline, many programs require quick action to compete for your portion of available funds. Some provisions of the bill have limited availability, and since the bill was originally passed in 2021, many programs have already begun distributing grant funding.

Contact our team of experts at Enel North America to understand more about the opportunities that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law unlocks for organizations looking to optimize their energy strategy. As one of the world’s largest renewable energy leaders and innovators, Enel has the expertise, experience, and full spectrum of integrated sustainable energy solutions to help you get the most from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.