Feds award nearly $25M to Pittsburgh high-tech energy projects
Two projects seeking to advance high-tech energy efforts in the Pittsburgh area were recently awarded nearly $25 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Duquesne Light is receiving $19.7 million to enhance grid flexibility and improve the power system’s resilience against extreme weather events caused by climate change, while Carnegie Mellon received about $5 million for research in experimental and theoretical high-energy physics, according to U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale.
The funding is part of $10.5 billion distributed by the Department of Energy.
The funding for Duquesne Light will help the company shore up its grid by upgrading technology, prevent faults in the system and increase clean energy availability in line with the city of Pittsburgh’s Climate Action Plan. Duquesne Light provides electricity to more than 1 million people across most of Allegheny and Beaver counties.
Lee said the investment should lower energy bills and benefit the environment.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said the funding should improve reliability of the grid’s electricity distribution, and it also includes money for workforce development efforts.
The funding for Carnegie Mellon will go toward research in the wide-reaching field of high-energy physics, which investigates the fundamental building blocks of matter and their interactions in space, according to the university’s website.
Future discoveries in this field also could generate a net gain in energy through concepts such as nuclear fusion.
The funding will support 12 faculty members at the university. Their work will focus on dark matter, black holes and other interdisciplinary studies centered on the creation of the universe.
Money will help fund faculty research at the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland, as well as the creation of the Light Dark Matter eXperiment at Stanford University in California.
Scott Dodelson, head of Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Physics, said the university is well-positioned to bring its expertise in computer science and artificial intelligence “to make unique contributions to the large collaborations that study these questions.”
Ryan Deto is a TribLive reporter covering politics, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County news. A native of California’s Bay Area, he joined the Trib in 2022 after spending more than six years covering Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh City Paper, including serving as managing editor. He can be reached at rdeto@triblive.com.
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