Senator Murray Includes $1 Million to Support WSU’s Work to Improve Transmission Grid, Increase Renewable Energy Access

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced that she has included $1 million for transmission grid research and development at Washington State University (WSU) in the fiscal year 2010 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill.

WSU’s grid reliability project aims to increase transmission grid reliability, which will create a greater capacity for renewable energy use—in this case, by developing new ways to ensure that the power grid that is more reliable, stable and secure than what is currently in use. 

“WSU’s work developing these power grid updates is essential to increasing our state’s access to affordable and environmentally-friendly forms of energy,” said Senator Patty Murray.  “This funding will support WSU’s work to improve grid reliability  and will help reduce ensure a cleaner environment for future generations.” 

 “The success of efforts to upgrade the national electric grid to a so-called ‘Smart Grid’ depend heavily on the research being performed here at WSU by Dr. Anjan Bose and his team,” said WSU President Elson Floyd. “Their work on the computational mathematics that underlie the ability of the grid to communicate with itself and with its human controllers in real time is truly critical to all other efforts to increase electricity flow through the grid and to anticipate and prevent overloads and local outages that lead to large-scale blackouts.”

Our nation’s transmission system is badly aged and vulnerable to disruptions.  WSU researchers are working to develop faster, more advanced technologies that will ensure the stability of the power grid, which will allow new clean, renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar, to come online. 

The funding was included in the Energy and Water Development fiscal year 2010 spending bill. Having passed the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee today, the bill will now go to the full Appropriations Committee before going to the full Senate for consideration.