Interconnection queue
The waiting line of proposed power plants and batteries seeking permission to plug into the grid.
Before a new solar farm, wind plant, or battery can connect to the grid, engineers have to verify the local wires can handle it — and determine who pays for any upgrades. The interconnection queue is the formal waiting line for that process: every proposed project files a request, gets studied, and works through a sequence of milestones before it is allowed to energize.
The queue is one of the best forward-looking views of the grid that exists, because it shows what developers are actually trying to build and where — years before the projects appear. It is also famously congested in its own right: across U.S. markets, far more capacity sits in queues than will ever be built, since developers file speculative requests and many projects drop out when study results reveal expensive network upgrades.
Reading a queue well means knowing its stages. Early-stage entries are cheap options that mostly won't survive; projects that have signed an interconnection agreement and posted serious money are a much stronger signal. ERCOT's 'connect and manage' approach — studying less and letting congestion sort out delivery later — is a big part of why Texas connects new resources faster than other U.S. regions.
For the technical reader
Queue processes differ by ISO, but the skeleton is common: a request with a proposed point of interconnection, screening and cluster/impact studies that allocate network-upgrade costs, a facilities study, then a signed interconnection agreement (in ERCOT, tracked through the GIS/GINR process with milestones like the full interconnection study and financial security postings). FERC Order 2023 pushed non-ERCOT regions from serial first-come-first-served studies to clustered first-ready-first-served with stiffer readiness deposits.
ERCOT's connect-and-manage regime studies a narrower reliability footprint and does not guarantee deliverability; the resulting congestion and curtailment risk is borne by the generator and priced through nodal LMPs rather than through upfront network upgrades. Analytically, queue composition (fuel, capacity, county, study phase, requested COD) is a leading indicator for future basis, congestion patterns, and local resource saturation.
On the platform
Or explore the concept across every power market.