Who is affected and how:

• Electric utilities and grid operators: Directly affected because grant awards and funding priorities will be determined by utility performance on SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI. Utilities with poorer reliability metrics over the prior five years stand to receive higher priority for funding; all applicants must compile consistent outage data and perform prescribed calculations.

• Owners/operators of generation and distribution assets: May see increased access to grant funds if their service territories have higher interruption frequency/duration, enabling investments in modernization, resilience, or repairs.

• State governments and Indian Tribes (grant administrators): Must apply the statutory weighting rules, verify applicant calculations, and administer awards consistent with the standardized metric definitions and five-year window—adding administrative tasks and oversight responsibilities.

• Communities and electricity customers in areas with poor reliability: Likely to benefit from redirected grant funds because the program requires extra weighting toward lower-reliability areas, which could produce upgrades that reduce outages and improve service.

• Grant applicants generally: Face some additional administrative burden to assemble five years of outage data, calculate the indices per the specified method (including handling Major Event Days), and include those calculations and supporting documentation in applications.

Overall effect: The amendment shifts grant prioritization toward service areas with demonstrated reliability problems, standardizes how reliability is measured across applicants, clarifies application treatment to reduce incentives to game project bundling, and extends the program’s authorization period. It increases technical and reporting requirements for applicants and oversight duties for administering authorities but aims to make award decisions more data-driven and targeted toward the worst-performing areas.