While previously, network upgrade costs could be shared across queues, the new proposal would ensure that upgrade costs would be contained within one cycle, creating greater certainty around possible costs required to interconnect a project. Third, network upgrade costs will be allocated differently. This will ensure that more mature projects are able to enter the queue and continue to progress through it as they reach other development milestones. Second, the process will be conducted on a first in/first out basis, with the readiness of applicants determined by the achievement of certain site control and development financial milestones. Removing more speculative projects with little likelihood of coming to fruition from future queues will also ensure a smoother process and save valuable time. A cycle approach to conducting studies ensures that future openings and closures of this cycle are synced with the progress of previous studies conducted and phases reached, which will enable greater efficiency in processing projects. Rather than a six-month window with defined openings, the new process will be cluster/cycle-based. In the past, projects applying for interconnection (called “new service requests”) were taken in at six-month intervals and processed in the order in which they were received. One of the key changes to reform is a move away from queue windows. With PJM’s comprehensive proposal to reform this process moving forward (prior to its submission to FERC for approval), it’s important to highlight some of the substantive changes to the process, and how this transition will potentially be conducted. Key objectives of the reform include cleaning up the queue by enabling backlogged projects to get through the process more quickly and efficiently, removing speculative projects, reducing the time spent in the queue process (with a target completion time not exceeding two years), and establishing new requirements to prevent future backlogs. In April of 2021, PJM established a Task Force to address this crucial issue.
#Pjm interconnection process 3 step windows#
It has been the port of call for many corporate buyers of renewable energy, but with more than 1,300 proposed projects representing more than 100 GW of capacity submitted in the last two queue windows alone, the need to reformulate the interconnection process has unquestionably reached an inflection point. PJM is a market that covers 13 states and the electricity load of 65 million people.
On January 5th, PJM’s Interconnection Process Reform Task Force finalized some answers regarding the two most central questions related to interconnection reform: How should the new process work, and how should the existing backlog of projects be managed? Project developers large and small have consistently cited interconnection queues as impacting their ability to provide cost certainty to buyers, sign PPAs, and ultimately, build the renewable energy projects essential to a sustainable future. Improving the interconnection process for large-scale renewable generation is a critical part of accelerating the energy transition.
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