The Mid-Continent Independent System Operator (MISO) employs a hybrid of connect and manage and FERC’s traditional interconnection pricing policy, which assigns costs to the entity causing the upgrades. While Germany is clearly an interconnection success story, it can be difficult to untangle the effects of connect and manage from the impact of other requirements, such as the one to obtain all local planning and siting approvals before entering the queue, which sharply cuts down on speculative projects—a reform that no market in the US has seriously contemplated. Germany, which likewise utilizes connect and manage, has some of the lowest queue waiting times in Europe, ranging between one and two years. In 2023, the UK’s Office of Gas and Electricity Markets stated that connect and manage “enabled the rapid connection of significant amounts of renewables to the grid, accelerating generation connections which would otherwise have had to wait for transmission network upgrades.” Under the “connect and manage” model, the grid operator narrows the scope of the interconnection study process to look at the grid enhancements necessary to allow the generator to physically interconnect to the grid. Options being implemented internationally may provide some lessons and additional pathways for FERC to examine as it considers the next step in fighting interconnection queue creep.
These obligations, which will help renewable energy developers, includes everything from imposing firm study deadlines and making clear any affected system flagged for the interconnection procedure. In 2003, FERC adopted Order Number 2003, which required utilities to adopt interconnection procedures and a standard interconnection agreement for all generators with more than 20 MW. This report reviews current proposals and offers recommendations for beneficial interconnection reform going forward. The RFI is directed at state energy offices, public utility commissions, electric utilities, regional transmission organizations, independent system operators, transmission and generation developers, large energy users, and other stakeholders.
By the end of 2022, over 2,000 gigawatts of proposed generation and storage projects were waiting in interconnection queues. Studies have quantified these delays and also highlighted the impact of queue withdrawals.5 With solar, wind, and storage projects making up approximately 94% of the total capacity in interconnection queues,6 this backlog is one of the primary obstacles for the clean energy transition. We can provide innovative solutions to take your business to greater heights. At Keentel Engineering, we specialize in helping developers, utilities, and asset owners navigate these evolving regulatory frameworks through advanced engineering design, interconnection studies, and compliance services.
Key Contacts
- This report reviews current proposals and offers recommendations for beneficial interconnection reform going forward.
- The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) submitted new comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on interconnection reforms that can sp…
- The vehicle for this signal was FERC’s approval of Southwest Power Pool’s (SPP) Consolidated Planning Process (CPP), a sweeping overhaul of interconnection and transmission planning that Commissioners described as a potential national template for addressing interconnection backlogs.
- In particular, it should require grid operators to include alternative transmission technologies in their assessment of which transmission upgrades are needed to add new resources, and prohibit them from limiting which technologies might qualify.
- And even when projects get the green light, supply chain bottlenecks and potential changes to federal incentives threaten to delay construction and increase costs.
And so that’s a really long time to languish in the queue. So that’s where in invest and connect in regions in the US, those queued projects are studied in power flow models, and you identify the necessary reinforcements, if needed. Now that’s a huge time delay, during which a lot can change. And that’s the theory behind the invest-and-connect strategy that happens in most of the US.
FERC Approves Streamlined Process To Replace Retiring Facilities
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) submitted new comments on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on interconnection reforms that can sp… This paper advances a series of reform principles, as well as near-term and longer-term interconnection reform recommendations. While the majority of FERC’s proposed rule addresses the interconnection queue backlog by helping grid operators process interconnection queues more efficiently, one aspect of the proposed rule would prevent backlogs by making interconnection queues more exclusive. In the current system, grid operators have allowed interconnection queues to reach unacceptable levels without facing any real consequences. We urge FERC to focus on the real barriers to rapid interconnection of new, low-cost energy resources, rather than false solutions that erect new barriers. Right now, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is weighing a series of proposed reforms that, if properly implemented, could address some of the biggest issues slowing our clean energy transition and dramatically reduce the delays project developers experience.
- And so would love to know more about what the discrepancy is there, because Order 2023 is really trying to make sure we’re using flexible and readily-available technologies to get the most out of the transmission system.
- First, interconnection customers that have completed a serial system impact study and been provided an Interconnection Facilities Study Agreement may opt to complete an Interconnection Facilities Study, which the transmission provider must perform within one hundred fifty 150 days of the Commission-approved effective date of its interconnection procedures.
- Each transmission provider will be required to maintain an interconnection “heatmap” that provides “an interactive visual representation of available interconnection capacity.”13 The heatmap will be focused on estimated incremental injection capacity available at each bus on the transmission provider’s system.
- But on the other hand, the pro to that is that they can bring new resources online very quickly and expeditiously, and so that’s helping them sail through these heat waves that we’re seeing, even with low prices.
- While implementation is still nascent (and some regions have submitted compliance filings that do not achieve all of the order’s stated goals), Order 2023 was a good first step.
And those aren’t appropriate here for XYZ reason.” But that’s not something that we have access to. How transparent is that data right now, and how would increased transparency potentially help to resolve these interconnection delays that we’ve been talking about? So again, we have this interconnection queue issue that we’ve been talking about, and some of the solutions to that. And this is how we’re able to dispatch the grid and keep prices as low as possible, because we build from the ground up. So that’s where that additional investment in buttressing the grid before you even connect comes in.
And if we focus on being an enabler of new generation and transmission, and implement more interconnection solutions than obstacles, consumers can reap the benefits of abundant, low cost, reliable energy. Now, what we’re finding is that every region across the US implements their processes differently. But on the other hand, the pro to that is that they can bring new resources online very quickly and expeditiously, and so that’s helping them sail through these heat waves that we’re seeing, even with low prices. And it remains to be seen when and how that’s implemented, but there could be a lot of further improvement based on that going forward. And unfortunately, that’s the behavior that we’re seeing. So this has led to a lot of speculative projects getting put in the queues, because that’s the only way for them to find out what these potential really high costs at any location would be.
By mandating the consideration of alternative transmission technologies, FERC balanced concerns by developers of alternative transmission technologies that barriers to entry exist for advanced transmission technologies versus concerns raised by transmission providers that mandated use of alternative transmission technologies could be problematic and time-consuming. Transmission providers must evaluate these alternative transmission technologies in all instances, without the need for a request from an interconnection customer. Under existing rules transmission providers have been permitted to use “reasonable efforts” to process interconnection requests in a timely manner, but have not been held to any specific timelines. Except under certain limited circumstances when there is a regulatory limitation to obtaining site control, interconnection customers will no longer have the option to provide a financial deposit in lieu of demonstrating site control. Transmission providers must use the LGIA deposit in its entirety before requiring interconnection customers to submit additional security.
Connect and Manage
The https://indianhelpline.in/business-contact/24626-telangana-state-renewable-energy-development-corporation-limited-tgredco/index.html content should not be considered legal advice or opinion, because it may not apply to the specific facts of a particular matter. SPP estimates the CPP could reduce planning process costs by more than $3 million annually and potentially avoid over $100 million in duplicative transmission spending each planning cycle. Key changes include a queue cluster window reduced from 11 months to 2 months, a single Decision Point (after which financial security is largely non-refundable), and a consolidated 180-day study period.
Australia’s Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has taken this concept a step further, creating an openly available “Connections Simulation Tool” (CST) that allows stakeholders to run simulations against the Australian grid’s models. MISO already provides a heat map, although it gives less information than required under Order No. 2023 (Figure 2). French and Danish grid operators offer heat maps (Figure 1) that provide interconnection headroom at every point of the grid and include a host of data points. Currently, no utility in the US provides the level of insight into the health of the transmission grid as required by FERC, and a critical touchpoint will be how independent system operators (ISOs) and regional transmission organizations (RTOs), which serve two-thirds of American customers, propose to comply with the new transparency requirements later this year.
To get more power to the grid faster, it would be better for FERC to implement regulatory changes to their interconnection review process instead of relying on special approvals. Neither proposal furthers wider system transformations that could speed approval for all energy projects; instead, they are localized one-time approval processes that fast-track projects that meet specific qualifications. Those special approvals grant PJM and MISO the ability to expedite specific projects through so-called queue jumping. In addition, there is a public comment process that includes the possibility of legal challenge, further extending project timelines.
Unsurprisingly, https://bandlybands.com/narkes-elektriska/ solar is now dominating the interconnection queues. So, what is ailing the nation’s interconnection queues? The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.