Photo by Dave Flessner / U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, second from left, looks over the Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center in Knoxville along with Dr. Richard Raines, left, ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia, second from right, and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischman, right.KNOXVILLE – The new $1 trillion infrastructure spending package signed into law last week should help propel broadband infrastructure across America, helping more communities to realize the high-speed internet connections and smarter electric grid now available in Chattanooga, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Monday.
During a tour of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and a visit to Chattanooga, Granholm said the extra $65 billion allocated to improve broadband internet access in rural areas in the infrastructure law President Biden signed last Monday should make broadband more accessible and affordable for lower-income households across the U.S., including the 13% of Tennessee households that now lack any broadband connections to the internet. Granholm praised Chattanooga’s city-owned utility, EPB, for pioneering the first citywide Gig internet service as part of its fiber-optic network built more than a decade ago to create a smarter and more versatile electric grid.
“Chattanooga’s experience as “Gig City” may mean that Tennessee becomes “Gig state” because there will be funding for high-speed internet service in every single pocket of the state,” Granholm told reporters here during a visit to the Grid Research and Integration and Deployment Center. “So every home will have access to high-speed internet.”
Granholm said the infrastructure package will also provide additional funding for more research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest of the 10 Department of Energy labs where scientists and engineers are studying Chattanooga-based EPB’s fiber-based grid network to create more microgrids and energy deployment systems to improve electricity reliability and cost.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is managed by UT-Battelle, has 5,800 employees and a budget last year of $2.4 billion. That funding could be increased in the current fiscal year, especially if the Senate approves a more sweeping infrastructure spending plan adopted last week in the U.S. House of Representatives.