News

Introduced today in the Senate and the House of Representatives, the bill would support the buildout of much-needed electric transmission infrastructure

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, national business association Advanced Energy United endorsed the Building Integrated Grids With Inter-Regional Energy Supply (BIG WIRES) Act, introduced today by Senator Hickenlooper and Representative Peters. The bill would address the need for more reliable transmission infrastructure to reduce power outages and upgrade power sector infrastructure.

New rule would establish the Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits Program

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Advanced Energy United, a national association of businesses united in their mission to achieve 100% clean energy and electrified transportation in America, applauded a newly proposed rule by the U.S. Department of Energy that would create a program to streamline federal permitting processes.

In particular, the new program would put the Department of Energy in charge of coordinating all agencies involved in the environmental review process, and cap the process at two years.

“Transmission developers are facing inefficient and lengthy review processes to getting projects permitted and approved, leading to increased costs and delayed timelines,” said Caitlin Marquis, Managing Director at Advanced Energy United. “Electric transmission lines are the essential backbones of our power grid, and building more transmission leads to lower energy costs and improved grid reliability. A more efficient permitting program that maintains essential review processes will provide more certainty for developers and support a stronger, more resilient power grid.

Canary Media examines the newest approval of reforms by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to improve the efficiency of interconnection projects, quoting Caitlin Marquis on the anticipated positive and negative impacts of the commission's ruling.

The U.S. has far more clean energy projects seeking to connect to the grid than utilities and grid operators can handle. It’s a crisis that has been decades in the making, but one that must be resolved in the next few years if the country is to meet its climate goals.

Last Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a sweeping set of reforms to address one facet of that crisis: the need to streamline and modernize the rules and processes that govern how power projects interconnect to the nation’s transmission grids.

Energy Wire reports on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)'s approval of a major rule in July 2023 aimed at improving the interconnection process. In the article, Caitlin Marquis is quoted, expressing overall support for the ruling and FERC's efforts to incorporate feedback from the developer community.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a major new rule Thursday to accelerate the connection of energy projects to the power grid, a move that could ease widespread delays stifling renewable energy.

The final rule aims to make the grid connection process more efficient at a time of unprecedented growth in clean energy development nationwide.

Calling the decision “historic,” FERC acting Chair Willie Phillips said changes in the rule will make the electric system more reliable by helping new energy projects come online faster. All four FERC commissioners voted for the plan.

FERC directs Transmission Providers to implement cluster studies, among other reforms

WASHINGTON, DC, July 27, 2023- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted today to finalize rules regarding how interconnection queues across the nation should be governed. The ruling establishes requirements that must be met by all public utility transmission providers, such asRegional Transmission Operators (RTOs), Independent System Operators (ISOs), and utilities in non-RTO/ISO regions. The long-awaited final rule follows up on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued by the Commission last July, in which the Commission recognized that interconnection backlogs threaten reliability and just and reasonable rates. Requirements in the final order include a transition to cluster studies, replacement of the “reasonable efforts standard” with study deadlines and penalties for transmission providers, and provisions to better accommodate new technologies such as storage and hybrid resources and to ensure consideration of grid-enhancing technologies.  

“Advanced Energy United and our members applaud the Commission for identifying the urgent need for interconnection reform and for working diligently to put forward a final Order that will start to improve the broken interconnection process,” said Caitlin Marquis, Managing Director at Advanced Energy United. “In light of the scope of the interconnection challenge, we also appreciate Acting Chair Phillips’s recognition that there is ‘so much more to do,’ and hope to see this momentum maintained with follow-up efforts by the Commission to address additional interconnection reform needs." 

PV Magazine highlights major takeaways from United's May 2023 webinar on interconnection processes and potential solutions, quoting Caitlin Marquis on the need for significant reform to make the interconnection transition more efficient.

The “efficient process solution” to interconnecting large-scale renewables and storage “is a combination of the ‘connect and manage’ interconnection approach with comprehensive regional transmission planning,” said Hannah Muller, head of markets and policy at Clearway Energy Group, on a webinar hosted by Advanced Energy United.

Greg Geller, vice president and head of regulatory affairs for Enel North America, said on the webinar that he also favors both approaches, and explained their advantages.

Advanced Energy United presented the webinar as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is completing work on a rule aiming to increase the speed and reduce the costs of interconnecting utility-scale renewable and storage projects. Muller and Geller focused their recommendations on further improvements that could be instituted after FERC issues its rule.

Explaining the “connect and manage” approach, Geller said “assume you have a 200 MW project.” Some transmission system operators, he said, study projects based on how they will be dispatched “in real time. And if in real time that project would cause a constraint” if 200 MW were dispatched, a “connect and manage” approach would instead dispatch 100 MW for the time period needed.

Utility Dive detailed the future of DER advancements in three key areas: wholesale markets, distribution systems, and new voices. The article quoting Caitlin Marquis' and pulling key findings from United's report on FERC Order 2222.

To meet federal and state electrification and decarbonization policies, 2023 will see major advances for DER aggregations in wholesale markets and at the distribution system level, utility representatives, DER advocates and policy analysts agreed. And 2023 may also see new community and consumer stakeholders take a more central role in driving growth, some experts said.