The developer of an 780-mile high-voltage superhighway for renewable energy is getting a jolt of support from the Biden administration in the form of a $4.9 billion conditional loan guarantee.
The Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office announced the award to Grain Belt Express LLC on its website Monday, noting that the loan guarantee is contingent on completion of an environmental review and other technical, environmental and financial conditions.
The loan aims to help finance the first phase of the 2,500-megawatt project, which would span 578 miles from southwestern Kansas to central Missouri. A second part of the project would run to southwestern Indiana, where it would be able to deliver Kansas-generated wind and solar energy to the nation’s largest power market, PJM Interconnection.
The project’s developer, Chicago-based Invenergy, sought the loan guarantee almost two years ago to help with financing the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line. The company at the time touted the line’s ability to play an important role in providing needed interregional transmission capacity to help meet the nation’s climate goals. Because it would be bidirectional, the line would also improve electric reliability, especially during extreme weather.
A company executive previously told POLITICO’s E&E News they expect strong demand for renewable energy delivered via the transmission line. The company said the federal loan guarantee could ease financing because it would allow the company to work with a single lender versus putting together a consortium of banks.
A permit to construct the second phase of the line through Illinois was overturned earlier this year by a state appellate court, which ruled that Invenergy failed to prove it is capable of financing the project despite being one of the nation’s largest private energy developers.
Invenergy officials confirmed the loan guarantee in an email Monday.
“We are pleased to see LPO’s evaluation validate the findings of the Kansas and Missouri Public Utility Commissions, both of which have long-affirmed our project is key to improving grid affordability and reliability across the Heartland,” said Shashank Sane, executive vice president of transmission at Invenergy.
The project has support not only from green groups that see the line’s potential to deliver more renewable energy, but also from municipal utilities in Missouri and large energy consumers such as the Electricity Consumers Resource Council (ELCON).
Karen Onaran, the group’s CEO, said in a statement that ELCON supports “many planned Trump Administration energy affordability and reliability reforms,” but that “there are some important [DOE Loan Program Office] projects that will be key drivers in meeting the Trump Administration’s goals to strengthen grid reliability and control energy cost inflation.”
When President-elect Donald Trump was previously in office, he proposed budgets to eliminate the DOE loan office. He’s also pledged to block unspent funds under the Inflation Reduction Act. If the loan is not finalized before the January inauguration, it puts it more at risk of being targeted by the incoming administration.
The Grain Belt Express project was initially proposed more than a decade ago by Clean Line Energy Partners and has faced political and legal challenges in Missouri and Illinois since then.
Invenergy, led by billionaire CEO and founder Michael Polsky, purchased the line in 2020 and has continued to battle some landowners and agriculture groups in Missouri and Illinois that are trying to block the project.
The Grain Belt line has siting approval from regulators in Kansas and Missouri, where a state appellate court recently denied a petition from agriculture groups to overturn the Public Service Commission’s approval. Earlier this month, the groups asked the state Supreme Court to hear the case.
Invenergy is also awaiting a hearing at the Illinois Supreme Court where the state Commerce Commission is seeking to overturn the appellate court ruling that would block the second phase of the project from moving forward.
Separately, DOE announced a conditional loan commitment Monday of up to $289.7 million to Sunwealth’s Project Polo, which envisions up to 1,000 solar and battery systems in 27 states.
The systems would be deployed on commercial buildings, multifamily properties and other sites and would avoid roughly four million metric tons of carbon over the project’s lifetime, according to DOE.
Reporter Brian Dabbs contributed.
