Advanced Energy United Reports

Publish Date: August 27, 2024

The “Generator Interconnection” process has taken center stage in energy policy debates in recent years, emerging as a key barrier to bringing new, cost-effective resources online to meet growing demand, maintain reliability, and ensure affordable electricity for customers. Last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released Order No. 2023, directing transmission providers to improve their interconnection processes, primarily by instituting a first-ready first-served cluster study process, increased readiness requirements for interconnection projects, and firm deadlines for study completion. Though Order No. 2023 set a critical foundation, more can be done to make the interconnection process as efficient and expedited as possible.

Publish Date: February 26, 2024; Updated: March 7, 2024

Currently, over one million megawatts of generator and storage projects are actively seeking to connect to the U.S. transmission grid. The various grid interconnection processes across the nation have been slow and received criticism from a wide range of stakeholders for being dysfunctional. The 2024 Advanced Energy United Generator Interconnection Scorecard evaluates the outcomes and processes of the generator interconnection process across the seven U.S. regional grid operators (the RTOs/ISOs), finding some bright spots and room for significant improvement.

Publish Date: November 1, 2023

The New England grid must rapidly replace retiring resources with new generation to meet future load. However, uncertainty regarding the cost of accessing the grid and delays in interconnection hinder these efforts. The costs imposed on ratepayers by inefficiencies in the interconnection process are so significant that they threaten to prevent New England states from achieving their policy requirements. 

Publish Date: October 5, 2023

Across the country, over 2,000 gigawatts of resources representing 10,000 projects are waiting for the green light to connect to the grid so they can commence construction and start operating—mostly clean resources like wind, solar, battery storage, and hybrid renewable-plus-storage projects. These projects are stuck in interconnection queues, undergoing an evaluation of reliability impacts and transmission system upgrades that must be made before they can start to deliver electricity to the grid.

Publish Date: September 13, 2023

Interconnection – the process of studying how a project will impact the grid once it's plugged in – is a key piece of the advanced energy deployment process. However, over the last few years as deployment accelerates, the interconnection process has stalled to a near standstill – leaving many clean energy projects stuck or even cancelled. To address this increasingly difficult issue, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) began to consider reforms back in 2021, and in July of this year, they issued a ruling based on their considerations.