Larson Announces $4 Million to Strengthen America’s Power Grid

East Hartford, CT - Today, Rep. John B. Larson (CT-01) announced $4 million in new federal funding awarded to RTX Technology Research Center in East Hartford, Connecticut, to strengthen and modernize America’s power grid. 

“This critical infrastructure funding we secured in Congress will help lower energy costs, accelerate clean energy deployment, and make our power grid more resilient to extreme weather events caused by climate change,” said Larson. “East Hartford’s RTX Technology Research Center has been at the forefront of cutting-edge research to advance America’s clean energy future. This project will protect consumers from devastating outages and move us closer to President Biden’s goal of a 100% clean energy power grid by 2035.” 

“The RTX Technology Research Center is leading a team of experts from national labs, universities, and industry to address electric distribution challenges,” said Andreas Roelofs, Vice President of Research and Development, RTX Technology Research Center. “This program aims to develop quantum and artificial intelligence technologies that will map the existing underground infrastructure and help increase the resilience and reliability of the U.S. power grid.” 

With this funding, RTX Technology Research Center will develop a mobile sensing platform to locate existing utility lines prior to installing underground power distribution lines, which could boost the accuracy of 3D reconstructions of sub-surface infrastructure by at least 95% compared with traditional data processing techniques. 

The electric power distribution system in the U.S. has more than 5.5 million line-miles with over 180 million power poles, all of which are susceptible to damage by weather and its effects, and account for a majority of power outages in the country each year. Undergrounding power lines through projects like this will safeguard the power grid system, making it more resilient against increasing extreme weather.