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Record volumes of solar, wind and battery projects are waiting to connect to the grid in the United States while transmission lines and interconnection reviews lag. The bottleneck has shifted from building generation to connecting it.
Last meaningful change Oct 12, 2026, 10:00 AM · 3 milestones · 1 updates · 2 articles
Record volumes of solar, wind and battery projects are waiting to connect to the grid in the United States while transmission lines and interconnection reviews lag. The bottleneck has shifted from building generation to connecting it.
Falling costs made solar and batteries the fastest-growing sources of new electric capacity in the 2020s. But a project must pass an interconnection study before it can connect, and queues at grid operators grew to historic lengths. Federal regulators ordered reforms in 2023. Analysts at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have tracked the queue for years; their reports are the standard reference.
Documented milestones are dated and sourced. Items marked illustrative belong to the demonstration scenario.
· Origin
Federal regulators adopt interconnection reforms including cluster studies and readiness requirements.
· Milestone
The laboratory's annual Queued Up report finds roughly 2,600 gigawatts of generation and storage capacity seeking interconnection at the end of 2023.
Source: Berkeley Lab, Queued Up
· Milestone · Illustrative
In this demonstration scenario, grid operators report another record backlog despite reforms.
Each entry says what actually changed, not a rewritten summary.
Operators report a record backlog despite reforms
Illustrative: Regional operators reported that cluster studies cleared more projects than last year, but new applications outpaced them.
Read: A Record Queue of Solar and Storage Projects Waits to Connect to the GridGrid operators cleared more projects than last year, in this illustrative scenario, but new applications outpaced them. The bottleneck in the energy transition is no longer building generation. It is plugging it in.
2 min read
1 min read
Forecasts made about this story, revisited as evidence arrives.
Illustrative
Interconnection queue reforms will reduce median wait times below three years by 2026.
Illustrative regulatory projection · made Aug 1, 2023 · horizon 2026