Washington - US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced 3.4 billion dollars in new government grants to modernize the country's electric power grid. The funds will help make the US electricity-generating grid more efficient and accommodate an expansion of renewable energies like wind and solar power. The money comes from a 787-billion-dollar fiscal stimulus measure approved in February.
The government grants were being matched by industry groups, amounting to total funding of more than 8 billion dollars. Obama said the US electricity grid "still runs on century-old technology" and was in desperate need of an upgrade.
Many renewable energy alternatives have struggled to gain traction in the United States because they are produced in rural parts of the country that have not been properly linked up with the national power grid.
The investment "will make our grid more secure and reliable," Obama said in making the announcement at a solar plant in Arcadia, Florida.
"It will allow us to more effectively transport renewable energy generated in remote places to large population centers, so that a wind farm in rural South Dakota can power homes in Chicago," he said.
