Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly recently announced that public power communities in the state will receive funding for energy grid resilience.
The overall more than $17 million investment, which will also provide funding to electric cooperatives, combines nearly $12 million in federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s 40101(d) Grid Resilience Grant Program and more than $5.8 million in matching funds from the Kansas Infrastructure Hub and Build Kansas Fund.
The public power community projects receiving grid resiliency funding are:
City of Garden City – Underground Conductor and Transformer Replacement
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- Build Kansas Funding – $302,590
- Federal Funding Awarded – $626,048
- Total Project – $928,638
City of Pratt – Substation Hardening
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- Build Kansas Funding – $1,034,551
- Federal Funding Awarded – $2,140,449
- Total Project – $3,175,000
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- Federal Funding Awarded – $414,627
- Total Project – $615,030
Holton Electric – Transformer and Feeder Circuit Improvements
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- Build Kansas Funding – $796,360
- Federal Funding Awarded – $1,647,640
- Total Project – $2,444,000
City of Blue Mound – Substation, Electric Line & Pole Replacement
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- Build Kansas Funding – $175,603
- Federal Funding Awarded – $270,071
- Total Project – $445,674
City of Anthony– Circuit Reconstruction
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- Build Kansas Funding – $131,161
- Federal Funding Awarded – $271,369
- Total Project – $402,530
City of Horton – Substation Upgrade
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- Build Kansas Funding – $529,494
- Federal Funding Awarded – $1,095,506
- Total Project – $1,625,000
City of Attica – Rebuild High-Voltage Feeder Line
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- Build Kansas Funding – $143,371
- Federal Funding Awarded – $296,629
- Total Project – $440,000
All of the funding recipients are members of the Kansas Municipal Energy Agency, with the exception of Attica.
"It is exciting to witness many of our members be selected to receive funds to make needed upgrades to their municipal electric utility systems,” said Paul Mahlberg, General Manager of KMEA. “With historic amounts of federal funding, it is great that some of the dollars are being spent in Kansas to help serve our communities and citizens."
KMEA’s role in helping its members has been more of an advisory role. “We help identify grant opportunities and share those with our members,” noted Tyson McGreer, Manager of Member Service at KMEA.
“We have also played a small role in reviewing the grant prior to applying, cost of project estimate (done by our Midstates team), and helping communities with questions with either the grant application or the grant submission process,” he said.
In addition to these awards, in recent months, the Build Kansas Fund has been used to leverage federal grant awards in the cities of Ozawkie, Manhattan, Russell, Concordia, Dodge City, Topeka, Nortonville, Ellsworth, Edgerton, Hutchinson, Independence; Coffey and Morton County; Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District; and the Salina Airport Authority.
The combined total investment by the Build Kansas Fund in all projects is just over $28.5 million, which has resulted in federal grant awards of more than $44 million.
The Kansas Infrastructure Hub connects multiple state agencies and serves as a resource center for Kansas communities to identify best practices for maximizing BIL funding opportunities.
The Build Kansas Fund provides state matching dollars for projects throughout Kansas that successfully apply for federal grants under BIL. In 2023, the Kansas Legislature and Governor Kelly approved $200 million for the Build Kansas Fund to provide state-matching dollars to Kansas entities and projects to meet federal-local match requirements.
