Connecticut Offered $24M for Grid Resilience Last Year and Got Zero Bids. The Re-Released RFP Is Due December 1, and DEEP Now Plans to Cover Your Match.

On November 11, 2025, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection released an RFP worth about $24 million for grid resilience construction: microgrids, storage, hardened lines, undergrounding and more. Towns, utilities, hospitals and tribes were all eligible.

It received no bids.

DEEP re-released the program on August 26, 2026. Proposals are due December 1, 2026. The money is the same, up to $24 million in combined state and federal funds, with awards from $10,000 to $6 million per applicant. The big change for anyone who passed last year is in the match language. DEEP's program page now says it "intends to issue grants to pay subawardees' cost match."

That changes the math. Here is how the program works and how to use the five weeks left.

The program, precisely

The solicitation number says "2027," but this is the 2026 round that closes December 1. Search CT Source for the full string, since the documents won't come up under a 2026 number.

Why nobody bid last time

DEEP hasn't published an explanation, but the structure of the money points to the likely reasons.

The match was steep. The 40101(d) formula program has two layers of match. The state matches 15% of its federal allocation. Any subawardee receiving 40101(d) money must then match 100% of the subaward, dollar for dollar. Only small utilities, those selling no more than 4,000,000 MWh a year, get a reduced one-third match. A town seeking a $3 million microgrid grant was really being asked to raise $3 million of its own. For most Connecticut municipalities that means a bond authorization and a town meeting, which doesn't fit a single procurement cycle.

The timeline was long and vague. DEEP's draft schedule called for letters of interest in October 2025, final RFP in November 2025, questions due December 1, 2025, and proposals due "May 2026," with contract start in late 2026 or early 2027. That's 12 to 15 months from interest to contract for a construction project with a 100% match requirement.

The program had been dormant. Connecticut's microgrid program is older than the IIJA. Public Act 12-148 created it after the long outages from Tropical Storm Irene and the October 2011 nor'easter. DEEP says it has awarded more than $22 million to microgrids across four rounds since 2013, supporting police and fire stations, municipal buildings and hospitals. Its own history shows the field was small: the pilot funded nine projects, and Rounds 2, 3 and 4 drew five, four and nine applications respectively. The program page then stated there was no open request for applications. Many of the engineering firms and municipal staff who knew the program had moved on.

The result shows up on DEEP's 40101(d) page: Connecticut has received $9.595 million in Grid Resilience formula funds to date, and "DEEP has not yet selected projects for the funding."

What changed: the match line

The 2026 page keeps the federal rule, 100% subawardee match or one-third for small utilities, and adds this: "CT DEEP intends to issue grants to pay subawardees' cost match."

In practice, DEEP appears ready to use the state Climate Resilience Fund dollars to cover the match that federal rules require of you. If the RFP carries that through, a municipality's real out-of-pocket cost on a 40101(d)-funded project could drop from 100% to little or nothing.

Two cautions:

• "Intends to" isn't a guarantee. Read the RFP on CT Source for the exact mechanism. Check whether the match grant is automatic or competitive, whether it counts against the $6 million ceiling, and whether it applies only to federally funded portions.
• Total funding is fixed. Every state dollar used to cover a match is a dollar that can't fund another project. If the match grant counts toward the $24 million, the realistic number of awards falls. A project that asks for less and offers its own match where it can may score better on cost-effectiveness. Look at the scoring rubric before you assume a free match is the best play.

Who can apply and for what

The eligible applicant list is broad:

• Electric grid operators, storage operators, generators, transmission owners and operators, and distribution providers (including participating municipal electric utilities)
• Fuel suppliers
• Local and regional governments, municipal corporations, regional councils of governments
• Public authorities, including quasi-public agencies
• State and federally recognized tribes
• Energy improvement districts
• Nonprofit, academic and private entities

Eligible measures follow the federal 40101(d) list: weatherization of equipment, fire-resistant technology, monitoring and control systems, undergrounding, utility pole management, relocating lines or reconductoring with low-sag advanced conductors, fuel-load management, distributed energy resources including microgrids and storage, adaptive protection, advanced modeling, hardening of lines, substations and facilities, and replacing old overhead conductors and underground cables. Other measures need DOE approval.

The state priority is "local distributed generation and resilient infrastructure at critical state facilities," with preference for Vulnerable Communities. The program page doesn't define either term, so pull the definitions from the RFP. The original microgrid statute gives a useful guide to "critical facilities": hospitals, police and fire stations, water and sewage treatment plants, public shelters, correctional facilities, and municipal centers.

Who is best positioned

Municipalities with a microgrid study on the shelf. Many Connecticut towns commissioned feasibility studies in the 2013–2018 rounds and never built. A study that identifies the critical-facility cluster, load profile and island-mode design is most of a technical proposal. Update the cost estimate to 2026 prices and you have a head start.

Small and municipal utilities. Connecticut's municipal electric utilities fall well below the 4,000,000 MWh threshold and qualify for the one-third match even before any state match grant. They also bring operating capacity a town can't, which makes them natural co-applicants on town-led microgrids.

Hospitals and water utilities. Both appear in the statutory critical-facility list, both have resilience obligations, and both usually have engineering staff. A water treatment plant with backup diesel that wants solar-plus-storage islanding is the kind of project this program was built for.

Applicants in Vulnerable Communities. The priority is explicit. If your project serves one, show it with the RFP's definition and the census or state data behind it.

Five weeks to December 1: a working plan

• This week: Download DEEP-2027-003-SW from CT Source. Watch the September 3 and 9 conference recordings. Find the questions deadline, which isn't on the program page, and submit your match-mechanism question now if the window is still open.
• By mid-November: Lock the site, the critical facilities served, and the technology. Get a preliminary engineering estimate. For microgrids, confirm the interconnection path with Eversource or United Illuminating, or your municipal utility, because the utility relationship is where these projects stall.
• By late November: Secure governing-body authorization. Even if DEEP covers the federal match, most towns need council or board action to apply for and accept a grant of this size. Plan around your meeting calendar.
• December 1: Submit through the process the RFP specifies.

There is also a federal backdrop. DOE's latest 40101(d) amendment released the final two years of IIJA grid resilience formula money, and states must apply by February 17, 2027. A state that hasn't placed its earlier allocations has trouble explaining its pipeline. Connecticut needs bids this round, and a field that was empty last year is a good sign for this year's applicants.

If you have a resilience project with a feasibility study and no grant narrative yet, Granted can help you turn the engineering into a scored proposal before December 1.