Dive Brief:
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The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday issued a road map aimed at improving processes that will allow generators to connect to the grid more quickly and efficiently.
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In steps that go beyond the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s recent interconnection reform rule, the Transmission Interconnection Roadmap calls for considering market-based options to ration interconnection access and separate the interconnection process from making network upgrades.
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“This is a landmark document, most notably because it offers the strongest institutional endorsement yet for reducing reliance on the interconnection process to identify and fund deep network upgrades, and to consider options for delinking interconnection processes from network upgrade planning altogether,” said Tyler Norris, a doctoral student at Duke University and former vice president of development at Cypress Creek Renewables.
Dive Insight:
The amount of capacity in grid interconnection queues jumped 27% last year to about 2.6 TW from 2022, according to a report released earlier this month by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The backlog — with solar, battery and wind projects making up 95% of queues — comes amid growing electric demand forecasts and efforts to cut carbon emissions from the power sector.
The road map was developed through DOE’s Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange stakeholder initiative. It focuses on four areas: increasing interconnection data access and transparency; improving and accelerating the process; promoting economic efficiency; and maintaining grid reliability. It calls for ensuring equal access to interconnection queues.
Some of the report’s recommendations include:
- Creating new fast-track options for interconnection and making better use of existing ones such as surplus interconnection service, generation replacement service and energy-only interconnection service;
- Developing a process to investigate interregional transmission projects through joint transmission planning between neighboring affected systems;
- Incorporating equity goals in transmission planning and valuation efforts;
- Ensuring that generators can elect energy-only interconnection and be curtailed instead of paying for network upgrades.
Currently, interconnecting generators typically pay for network upgrades that are needed to bring their projects online.
On the issue of cost allocation, DOE said that expanding options for interconnection service and proactive transmission investments should reduce cost uncertainty and make cost sharing more efficient.
“If current efforts to reduce interconnection bottlenecks prove unsuccessful, transmission providers may need to consider more radical departures from the current participant funding model of interconnection cost allocation,” DOE said.
The DOE road map largely tracks with a draft plan released in October, suggesting “considerable alignment” among stakeholders, Norris said in an email.
Parties that commented on the draft report include Advanced Energy United, American Electric Power, ENGIE North America, Environmental Law & Policy Center, GE Vernova Consulting Services, Invenergy, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, National Grid, the PJM Interconnection and Tesla Energy.
“There is unlikely to be any document for years to come reflecting such a comprehensive set of solutions combined with a clear vision for deeper interconnection reform, especially one convened by a federal agency and vetted by so many experts and stakeholders,” Norris said.
The road map includes good ideas that are already in FERC’s Order 2023 and many more that go beyond it, according to Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a consulting firm that contributed to the report. “I hope [regional transmission organizations] and FERC work to spread many of these practices,” he said in an email.
In a move that could affect interconnection queues, FERC is working to revise its transmission planning and cost allocation requirements, possibly approving new rules at its April 25 open meeting.
“Closer alignment in the data inputs, assumptions, and process timelines between interconnection and long-term transmission planning can help ensure that transmission solutions that would have been more efficiently identified in transmission plans are not instead triggered through the interconnection process,” DOE said.
