What Is The Interconnection Queue?
Energy demand in the United States is increasing rapidly due to the major growth in electricity demand, and our electric grid is struggling to keep up. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that the net generation of electricity from utility-scale generators (power plants with at least 1,000 kilowatts or 1 megawatt capacity) in 2023 was 4,178 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) or 4.18 trillion kWh– more than 14 times greater than electricity use in 1950. In 2023, 60% of that electricity came from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, petroleum), 21.4% from renewables, and 18.6% from nuclear. And increasing energy demand, or load growth, has only climbed since then.
A survey of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) filings from 2023 found that US grid planners have almost doubled their annual forecast for electricity demand over the next five years. This unprecedented growth is driven by the increased electrification of our daily lives, from cars to stoves to home heating and cooling, not to mention the explosive rise in data centers and artificial intelligence (AI). The recent AI boom has led to a dramatic rise in projected load growth for data centers. In 2024, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a report on the increased electricity demand from data centers and found that domestic energy usage from data centers is expected to double or triple by 2028. Even more recently, a 2025 report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that in the US, energy use from data centers is projected to account for nearly half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030.
The US does not currently have the energy capacity or grid infrastructure to support this load growth, and the biggest barrier to getting more electricity onto the grid is the interconnection queue. The interconnection queue is the waitlist of projects that have applied to connect to the electric grid. The entities that manage US electricity transmission and wholesale markets, the Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs), require developers to undergo studies before construction to determine the required system upgrades and estimate costs. These studies help ensure grid safety, but the time projects take to go from initial request to commercial operation has grown from under two years in 2008 to nearly five years in 2023. Meanwhile, our energy needs have only gotten bigger and the timing has become more urgent.
The interconnection queue was already too long to manage, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 sparked a rush of renewable energy projects in response to the tax credits and economic incentives for wind, solar, and storage. Now, this crisis has reached an inflection point as the recent One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) plans to phase out clean energy tax credits by 2027, forcing developers, regulators, and commercial actors to act fast to figure out how to get enough electricity on the grid to meet rising energy demands before it’s too late.
Why Is The Interconnection Queue So Long?
A report on the interconnection queue from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a federally funded energy research lab, found that projects built in 2023 took nearly five years to go from requesting an interconnection study to commercial operation, compared to three years in 2015 and less than two years in 2008. In fact, there is more energy capacity requested in the queue than is currently on the grid. The installed capacity of the entire US power plant fleet is roughly 1,280 gigawatts (GW), and in 2023, the capacity in the queue reached 2,600 GW– more than twice the current amount on the grid. While there are multiple factors driving demand, there are a few key reasons why the wait has gotten so long:
- Increased volume (number and wattage) of projects applying to connect
- Outdated grid infrastructure that needs to be updated to accommodate new projects
- Understaffed agencies unprepared to meet the level of demand
Interconnection requests have surged since 2013, both in terms of overall requests and total capacity, and the majority of requests are for renewables and storage. By the end of 2023, there were roughly 11,600 projects seeking interconnection to the grid, consisting of 1,570 GW of generator capacity and 1,030 GW of storage capacity. Solar, storage, and wind projects made up 95% (>1,400 GW) of queue capacity and over 94% of projects were zero-carbon generation. Only 3% (79 GW) of queue capacity was from gas, and an even smaller amount (15 GW, < 1%) came from nuclear, hydro, and geothermal combined.
While the overwhelming majority of queue capacity is from renewables, it doesn’t mean that amount of renewable energy will actually get turned on. Only 20% of projects that requested interconnection between 2000 and 2018 reached commercial operation by the end of 2023, meaning that wait times are increasing while completion rates remain low. Over 70% of interconnection requests are withdrawn, and the combination of bureaucratic red tape, aging transmission lines, and understaffed operators prevents developers from addressing critical energy capacity issues.
The biggest hurdle delaying projects is the transmission upgrades required to connect new projects to the grid. Historically, grid operators updated transmission lines ad hoc, based on project needs, but the simultaneous scale of new requests and load growth has far outpaced the speed of transmission upgrades. It is not enough simply to speed up the studies to move projects through the queue faster, the country must update its grid infrastructure to meet rising energy demands.
Policy Reforms To Speed Things Up
There have been attempts from the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) and RTOs/ISOs to speed up the interconnection process, but most projects are still waiting in the queue and the results remain to be seen.
In 2023, FERC Order No. 2023 initiated reforms to reduce backlogs for projects seeking connection to the transmission system, improve coordination of the interconnection process among transmission providers, and provide easier access for new technologies to connect to the grid. In an effort to speed up interconnection studies– which is where most developers withdraw– the rule required transmission providers to study projects in groups (cluster studies) and introduced “first ready, first served” criteria, which prioritizes projects that are ready for implementation rather than the previous “first come, first served” rule.
At the regional level, RTOs and ISOs have also implemented reforms to address the problem. In 2023, the California ISO (CAISO) proposed prioritizing projects where transmission systems have available capacity and limiting projects in certain areas based on planned transmission capacity. In 2023, Texas passed a law (House Bill 1500) to bolster the grid and energy markets, which introduced an interconnection cost cap within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) service-region that requires developers to pay for any costs above a standard ratepayer-covered allowance. This incentivizes developers to build closer to interconnecting transmission lines with existing capacity, however, it could disproportionately hurt renewable projects, as solar and wind farms are often located in more remote regions. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) increased payments for developers when they hit project milestones and adopted a penalty for projects that withdraw to encourage project completion. However, MISO also proposed introducing a cap on the total queue size, which FERC rejected.
The “One Big Beautiful Big Act” creates new pressure
The recent OBBBA phases out key IRA incentives, which will likely lead to a surge in developers attempting to break ground on projects before the new deadline. The table below shows how six key tax credits will shrink or disappear under the new law:
| Tax Credit or Policy | OBBBA Changes |
| 45Y – Clean electricity production tax credit (PTC) |
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| 48E – Clean electricity investment tax credit (ITC) |
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| 45U – Nuclear PTC |
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| 45V – Clean Hydrogen |
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| 45Q – Carbon Capture |
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| 45X – Advanced Manufacturing |
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The placed-in-service deadlines make the need to speed up the interconnection queue more urgent than ever before. Developers will rush to complete projects over the next two years, but with an average five-year wait for the interconnection process, survival is doubtful for most renewable projects in the queue. Smaller developers may get squeezed out if they are less able to meet the tighter deadlines and cannot afford projects without tax credits. Moreover, corporations may start seeking power-purchase-agreements (PPA) or private generation contracts to avoid the interconnection queue, paying more out of pocket and diverting desperately needed resources from the grid.
Nuclear and geothermal projects are exempt from the phaseouts, and while they made up less than 1% of proposed capacity in 2023, that will likely change in the coming years. Energy storage projects are also exempt, which will be critical to supplement energy from the majority of intermittent (e.g., solar, wind) projects. In response to the OBBBA, FERC and the RSOs/ITOs must institute additional reforms to clear the interconnection backlog and fast-track projects that face the 2027 deadline. Since the majority of projects in the queue are solar and wind, it won’t be possible to fast-track every project, but grid operators can prioritize those that are ready to go, and developers may need to downsize or consolidate projects to finish on time.
Why This Matters For Everyone, Not Just Clean Energy And Climate Advocates
Big tech companies and commercial and industrial customers are already under pressure as their energy needs grow, and the OBBBA phase-outs will only intensify the problem by driving up electricity costs, delaying data center development, and threatening access to clean, reliable energy. At the same time, the overloaded interconnection queue and outdated transmission system exposes the grid’s vulnerability to climate change– extreme heat, cold snaps, and flooding. Meeting these needs requires accelerating the deployment of distributed clean energy to strengthen grid resilience and energy security.
The interconnection backlog and aging grid infrastructure are no longer merely bureaucratic inconveniences, they are critical threats to meeting this country’s energy needs. Developers have a ready pipeline of clean energy projects, but without swift, bipartisan action to fix the queue and upgrade the grid, these opportunities will be lost. As demand surges and tax credit deadlines approach, policymakers and grid operators must prioritize reforms that unlock clean energy capacity and deliver the reliable, affordable power our future depends on.
Questions for Readers
How do you think politicians and regulators should approach interconnection queue reform? Where can the private sector and civil society help advocate for improvements?