Department of Energy awards $47 million to Gainesville’s utility 

Gainesville Regional Utilities gate
Courtesy city of Gainesville

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) a $47.5 million grant to strengthen the electric grid and support workforce development, as announced by President Joe Biden on Sunday.  

The grant comes as part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program. The program focuses on access to affordable, reliable energy, and parts of the funding will also boost GRU’s LeepPlus program that provides energy efficiency upgrades to low-income residents.  

Ed Bielarski, CEO of GRU, said the funds will help the utility provide a premium product, with more reliability meaning more happy customers.  

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“It’s important to point out that one of the main reasons we received this grant is because GRU is an industry leader in grid reliability,” Bielarski said in a release. “Because we already are innovative and reliable, DOE wants to use us as a model to further innovate and enhance our resilience and storm response, including in disadvantaged communities.”   

Bielarski said many of the upgrades wouldn’t have already been in the utility’s plans.  

GRU will have five years to spend the money and has allocated $23.7 million to use with the federal funds.

The combined $71 million will include the following upgrades: 

  • Replacing 10 transformers  
  • Replacing outdated circuit breakers with new technology  
  • Replacing 129 wooden poles with ductile iron poles  
  • Enhancing GRU’s digital meters to more easily detect and respond to outages  
  • Hardening and undergrounding distribution lines serving disadvantaged communities  
  • Building a new substation in southwest Gainesville 

The money will also establish a line worker apprenticeship program with Santa Fe College along with other workforce development projects.  

“I want to thank everybody involved in this utility-wide effort,” Bielarski said. “This is a testament to our excellent staff and commitment to being a utility that puts its customers first.”   

Bielarski said the utility will still need to negotiate a contract with the DOE in the coming months before putting the plan into action. 

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Raymond Mellott

The pic of the gate and the motto might not need to be changed after the November election. Unless control of GRU returns to the City, the new motto should be changed. Because while the City owns the utility, the utility is beholden to the Governor. Not the City.

real Gainesville citizen and voter

Correct!

Linda Sartain

GRU isn’t beholden to the Governor. The Board is made up of city and county people who are better equipped to run GRU.
It doesn’t take much to be better than the City Comm. But already this Board has made outstanding decisions [Bielarski back to Gru].

Cynthia Binder

It’s all good
Edison made something just right over there about the first city ti have electricity…maybe…

Back in 18 something not 19 something .
Centuries fly by fly 🪰 🎶 ✨️ 🪰 🪁 🦟