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A drone monitors powerlines near an evergreen forest.

Colorado Advanced Grid Monitoring Grant Program

Colorado Advanced Power Grid Monitoring Grant Program

 

Funding Overview:

Type: Grant
For: All Colorado Utilities
Amount: Maximum $500,000 per applicant; approximately $1.9 million total will be available between this and the Grid Hardening for Small and Rural Communities grant program for the fall 2025 application round.
Match: One-third match required for smaller utilities (less than 4 million MWh sold in 2022); 100% cost match (or 50% cost share of total project costs) for larger utilities (more than 4 million MWh sold in 2022)
Application: Third round will open September 3 and close November 3, 2025
Future rounds: To be determined.

Colorado Advanced Power Grid Monitoring Grants are available to help electric utilities fund critical grid monitoring and resilience projects. The Colorado Energy Office (CEO) will prioritize funding based on demonstrated need, project impact, project readiness, and labor impact. These resilience projects will facilitate monitoring and/or modeling of a variety of impacts, including wildfires and extreme weather, on different portions of the grid. This funding comes from part of Colorado’s appropriation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) (2021) 40101(d) Grid Resiliency funding.
Sign up for updates on the Grid Resiliency Program

Contact information: 
gridresiliency@state.co.us

Eligible Applicants

All Colorado electric utilities are eligible to apply for this electrical grid monitoring grant.

Eligible Projects

Eligible projects for grant funding include:

  • Power grid monitoring systems, tools, and related technologies for fire monitoring and prevention
  • Advanced Vegetation and fuel-load management using LiDAR, satellites, drones, AI, or other information technology
  • Distribution pole sensors
  • Smart meters (advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI)
  • Grid modeling

How It Works

The application period for the 2025 funding round opened September 3 and will close November 3, 2025.

Additional information about eligibility, award amounts, and more is available in the Request for Applications (RFA) document linked below. 
View 2025 Request for Applications (RFA) document 
View supplemental Application documents

The CEO Grid Resiliency Program Manager will present an informational webinar about the third round of grid resilience funding on September 11, 2025.
Register for the Informational Webinar on September 11, 2025, at 11:00 AM MT
Watch the August 2024 Webinar Recording

Presentation slides are available in the description of the YouTube video linked above. 

Step 1.

Download and Review the Application (RFA Document)

Step 2.

Prepare and submit all required documentation

Step 3.

Colorado Energy Office, DOLA Colorado Resiliency Office, and DORA staff will review and score applications in accordance with scoring criteria

Step 4.

CEO will make final project award decisions and inform all applicants of their award or non-award status.

Step 5.

The U.S. Department of Energy will review the application for federal compliance. This may take 6 months or longer. No work may begin until after award and DOE approval.

Step 6.

Awarded applicants must enter a formal grant agreement with CEO to receive funds. 
CEO will issue payment as reimbursements. Work performed before formally executing a grant agreement is not eligible for reimbursement.