The era of "first-come, first-served" is over. FERC’s latest order fundamentally shifts the interconnection queue to a "first-ready, first-served" model.
For years, the interconnection queue has been the bottleneck of the energy transition. Speculative projects flooded the line, causing delays for viable projects. The new order aims to clear this backlog by imposing stricter financial and readiness milestones.
Key Changes
- Readiness Milestones: Developers must show site control and commercial readiness deposits earlier in the process.
- Withdrawal Penalties: Stiff penalties for withdrawing late to discourage speculative queue positions.
- Cluster Studies: Moving away from studying one project at a time to studying groups of projects, speeding up processing.
This is a welcome change for serious developers, but it presents a new challenge: identifying the right site is now more critical than ever before entering the queue.