Trump Administration Freeze Stalls Grid Upgrades That Could Cut MISO Outages by Half
Federal grant terminations are blocking smart-grid technology across MISO territory, leaving utilities in limbo as power demand climbs.
The Trump administration is withholding billions of dollars in federal grid grants, stalling projects that utilities say could cut power outages in targeted communities across the Midcontinent Independent System Operator footprint by up to 50%, according to Canary Media reporting published Thursday (2026-08-06).5
The freeze is hitting at an awkward moment. MISO Indiana Hub spot power was trading at $116.00/MWh on Thursday (2026-08-06), with the grid under pressure from summer demand, while utilities across the region find themselves unable to deploy fault-isolation and grid-management technology that was supposed to be funded by grants now effectively frozen by the administration.5
Sacramento Municipal Utility District's situation illustrates how far the disruption reaches. In 2023, SMUD won a $50 million Department of Energy grant to deploy 200,000 smart meters and grid devices, with underlying software controls aimed at improving reliability and efficiency. The utility has since carried out close to $100 million in its own spending on the project but has received only about $33 million in DOE reimbursements, according to federal records reported by Canary Media. Whether the remainder comes through is now uncertain.5
Portland General Electric faces a similar bind. The Oregon utility recently learned that DOE may reinstate a previously terminated $50 million grant for next-generation grid-edge computing devices, PGE spokesperson John Farmer told Canary Media. That project had received only $1.2 million in federal funding before being cut off. PGE said it "recognizes that there are inherent risks of additional and changing demands by the DOE as the administration's priorities change," while still negotiating a separate $250 million grant for high-voltage transmission.5
The dollar figures at stake get larger when interstate transmission enters the picture. A $464 million DOE Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships grant for the Joint Targeted Interconnection Queue project — designed to build new transmission lines between MISO and Southwest Power Pool — is now frozen, according to Canary Media. That grant was structured to leverage $1.3 billion in matching utility funds to enable nearly 30 gigawatts of new generation across Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. With the federal tranche held back, the economics of that matching commitment come under pressure.5
The grant freeze lands against a backdrop of rising capacity pressure inside MISO. Entergy's gas-fired projects alone make up nearly a third of roughly 28 GW sitting in MISO's fast-track interconnection queue, according to a Utility Dive analysis of the updated list released on Wednesday (2026-05-27). About 70% of Entergy's proposed capacity additions, spread across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, are designed to serve planned data center complexes, according to MISO's Expedited Resource Addition Study process summary. Entergy projects retail sales growth of 8.5% annually through 2030, partly driven by industrial load growth, and plans to spend about $27 billion on new generation and $7 billion on renewables and storage through 2029.2
Smart grid technology was meant to stretch existing infrastructure further while new capacity queues through a multi-year interconnection process. Duke Energy's self-healing grid technology in the Southeast — a comparable deployment — prevented more than 300,000 customer outages during back-to-back storms and saved customers more than 300 million minutes of outage time, according to Power Magazine reporting. With 77% of Duke's customers served by the technology, the utility restored 95% of outages within 72 to 96 hours. The technology being frozen out of MISO communities is designed to perform comparable triage on the grid.3
On the supply side, MISO's solar and battery fleet is providing more seasonal cushion than it did even two years ago. NERC found that 20.4 gigawatts of solar in MISO can provide 60% of nameplate capacity during peak hours, while the region's roughly 3.6 gigawatts of battery storage carries a 97% peak contribution rating — figures that support reliability during high-demand periods. But those assets cannot compensate for the localized fault-isolation function that advanced distribution sensors and grid-management software provide when outages actually occur.1
The regulatory picture is also getting messier. American Transmission Co. filed a complaint with FERC during the week of June 22 (2026-06-22) alleging that MISO botched the competitive solicitation process for a $350 million power line and four substations in Wisconsin, adding another contested layer to the region's already congested transmission development pipeline.4
The immediate risk is a compounding one. Utilities that have already deployed their own capital expecting federal reimbursement now face balance sheet exposure if grant payments continue to lag. SMUD's $100 million in project spending against $33 million in recovered federal funds is a live example. For utilities still negotiating grant terms — PGE's $250 million transmission grant remains unresolved — the administration's demonstrated willingness to terminate and reinstate funding on shifting terms is itself a planning constraint. Whether DOE formalizes the reinstatement of the PGE grid-edge grant or lets that process drag into a second review cycle will be an early indicator of whether any of the frozen grid modernization money actually moves.5