What Is the Interconnection Queue?

Before a power plant can plug into the grid, the regional grid operator must study what upgrades its connection requires and who pays for them. Projects file requests and wait — often four or five years — while studies grind through a first-come, first-served backlog. Many projects enter the queue speculatively and later withdraw, which forces studies to be redone and stretches waits further.

Queue reform is one of the highest-leverage clean energy policy fights: FERC's Order 2023 pushed operators toward 'first-ready, first-served' cluster studies with stiffer deposits and readiness requirements. The queue is where the energy transition physically bottlenecks — most proposed US capacity is solar, storage, and wind, and every year of queue delay is a year of deferred clean generation.