Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced its intent to award up to $43 million in Microgrid Incentive Program (MIP) grant funding for the development of nine new community-driven microgrids throughout its Northern and Central California service area.
PG&E also announced the opening of the application window for the second wave of MIP grant funding beginning April 3, 2025.
To apply for the second application window, interested parties must submit MIP project ideas to PG&E by May 30, 2025, through an email to communitymicrogrids@pge.com.
The Microgrid Incentive Program funds the development of community microgrids to support disadvantaged communities most vulnerable to outages.
A microgrid consists of a group of interconnected customers and distributed energy resource(s) (DER) that can disconnect from and reconnect to the grid to stay energized during an outage.
Community microgrids are typically designed to serve a variety of vulnerable customers and key community resources such as hospitals, police and fire stations, schools, water treatment and telecommunications facilities, gas stations, markets, and residences, among others.
PG&E received approximately 50 inquiries from tribal governments, local governments and community-based organizations since launching its MIP in late 2023.
22 of the roughly 50 project inquiries advanced through initial program screening requirements and technical consultations with PG&E to submit applications. Each of those 22 projects received an application development grant of $25,000 to offset community investments in developing successful project applications.
PG&E subsequently selected nine projects following a rigorous evaluation and scoring process. PG&E's project scoring framework evaluated customer and community attributes, resilience benefits, and environmental benefits along with the requested incentive amounts to determine the projects with the highest benefit-to-cost ratio.
Prior to formally accepting the awards, the nine selected wave one MIP projects will perform due diligence to: review the terms of their award; reconfirm their project assumptions, including any changes to projected development costs; and reassess risks associated with other funding sources they may have assumed to be available.
Upwards of $43 million will be awarded to the nine projects, of which approximately $34 million will be dedicated to pay for front of the meter generating resources (such as solar) and batteries, engineering and project management costs, and property purchase or lease costs. Each of the nine projects will also be allocated up to an additional $1 million to cover interconnection costs for the distributed energy resources that will power the microgrids.
"The North Coast is home to several ground-breaking microgrids that benefit customers in the region, including the Redwood Coast Airport and Blue Lake Rancheria microgrids in Humboldt County. These microgrids have now been active for several years providing resilience and low-carbon energy to some of our most vulnerable communities. PG&E was an early collaborator on these microgrids and we're proud to continue supporting the expansion of community microgrids to additional North Coast communities through this significant award," said Dave Canny, Vice President for PG&E's North Coast Region.
The microgrids selected in the first wave of MIP funding are located throughout PG&E's North Bay and North Coast region and comprise four projects in Humboldt County, three projects in Lake County, and two projects in Marin County. Four of the nine projects will serve tribal communities. The microgrids will serve as new energy resilience solutions in the event of broader electric grid outages for a total of nearly 9,000 customers including approximately 3,600 customers with Access and Functional Needs (including people with disabilities, older adults, children, limited English proficiency, and transportation disadvantaged). The wave one awardees will receive between approximately $1-6 million each, based on requested incentive amounts and following the results of PG&E's project application scoring.
Generation resource types for selected MIP projects include a variety of clean energy solutions such as solar, battery energy storage, pumped hydroelectric storage, small hydroelectric, and biomass.
