The Energy Department has terminated $12.5 billion in grid grants

356 awards cancelled since January 2025 and 303 more worth $12.2 billion under threat, per a DOE Alumni Network count. Named casualties include transmission and tribal grid projects.

A count by the DOE Alumni Network, reported by Canary Media, puts 356 Department of Energy awards worth $12.5 billion as terminated since January 2025, with a further 303 awards worth $12.2 billion threatened with termination. The department separately announced the termination of 321 financial awards supporting 223 projects, tied to states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.

The named cancellations show what the aggregate means physically. A $630.6 million California grant to upgrade more than 100 miles of transmission with advanced conductors was terminated in October with nothing disbursed. Alliant Energy's $50 million SPARC project in Wisconsin, which would have served 140 grid circuits in disadvantaged and tribal communities, is gone; Alliant withdrew voluntarily in April with no funds drawn. Sacramento Municipal Utility District's $50 million award, made in 2023, was cancelled on October 10, 2025 after the utility had spent nearly $100 million and been reimbursed about $33 million.

The reason this is friction rather than a budget story is the direction of the physical work. Grid capacity is the binding constraint on almost everything else this site tracks — solar interconnection, storage, electrification, data centres. Cancelled transmission does not become cheaper later; it becomes a queue. Two caveats worth carrying: the Alumni Network is an advocacy organisation rather than a government auditor, and in two of the three named cases no federal money had actually been paid out, so the loss is of work not started rather than of money spent.

Source: Canary Media