Two projects in New Mexico won federal ’smart grid’ stimulus money today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced.

But it’s difficult to tell how much of the money will actually stay in New Mexico. More than $4.7 million of $6.5 million awarded to projects in New Mexico according to the U.S. Department of Energy went to Ktech Corporation. A chart accompanying the DOE press release says that $4.7 million for Ktech will be divvied up between Albuquerque, Sunnyvale, Calif. and Snelling, Calif.

The second award, for $1.75 million, went to the Public Service Company of New Mexico, according to the DOE chart.

The projects, both of which are located in Albuquerque, are meant to demonstrate “advanced Smart Grid technologies and integrated systems that will help build a smarter, more efficient, more resilient electrical grid,” according to a DOE press release issued this morning.

Overall, New Mexico had applied for $50 million in federal stimulus ’smart grid’ money for five projects.

The federal money for the two projects is only a portion of the funding paying for the two projects. Roughly $3.75 million in private-sector funding will push the value of the Ktech project to over $9.5 million, the DOE chart shows. PNM will spend nearly $4.1 million of its own money in addition to federal dollar in its project.

Here’s a description of the Ktech project:

Flow Battery Solution for Smart Grid Renewable Energy Applications — Demonstrate a prototype flow battery system that can be grid connected, charged and discharged, and scaled to utility power levels. The project will combine a proven redox flow battery chemistry with a unique, patented design to yield an energy storage system that meets the combined safety, reliability, and cost requirements for distributed energy storage.

And here’s a description of the PNM  project:

PV Plus Storage for Simultaneous Voltage Smoothing and Peak Shifting – Demonstrate how a 2.8MWh Zinc-Bromine flow battery along with a sophisticated control system turns a 500kW solar PV installation. into a reliable, dispatchable distributed generation resource. This hybrid resource will mitigate fluctuations in voltage normally caused by intermittent sources such as PV and wind and simultaneously store more energy for later use when customer demand peaks.

The federal government is hoping to spark a refurbishing of the electricity grid that now powers the country with the stimulus money.

What is a smart grid? In the simplest way to think about it, it’s a modernization of the electricity grid, to make it more efficient and more green. Think of it as the Internet brought to our electrical system, as one federal report on the smart grid concept.