At its September Commission meeting, FERC approved compliance plans for four utilities’ Order No. 2023 operations, continuing the Commission’s efforts to streamline the process of linking much-needed generation to the nation’s power grid.
Order No. 2023, approved in July 2023, is an historic step in reform and modernization of the transmission grid by providing greater timing and cost certainty to interconnection customers trying to link up to it. It addresses a severe backlog of more than 2,000 gigawatts of energy resources waiting in line to hook up to the grid. Wait times are longer than five years, which means the average project needed today will not begin construction until 2029.
And it is all part of the Commission’s multi-pronged work on what Chairman Willie Phillips calls a transmission reform journey.
“Connecting new resources to the grid quicker and more efficiently is key to more reliable, resilient, and affordable electricity for everyone,” Phillips says.
He often notes that many entities are developing compliance plans while some regional transmission operators proactively submitted their interconnection queue reforms. The September meeting saw approvals of compliance plans for Idaho Power Company, Puget Sound Energy, Inc., Black Hills Colorado Electric, LLC and Golden Spread Electric Cooperative, Inc.
In remarks after the Commission meeting, Chairman Phillips noted the significant public interest in and turnout at a two-day, staff-led interconnection workshop September 10 and 11, 2024.
“There were some great ideas that were mentioned” at the workshop, Phillips said. “A lot of them were surrounding transparency and automation. I believe that those are two areas where we can move forward, and FERC can take action, and I think that it will help speed up the efficiency of our interconnection queues.”
That transmission reform journey also includes Orders No. 1920 and 1977, which the Commission approved in May 2024. Order No. 1920 outlines how to plan and pay for transmission needed for reliable operation of the grid and to ensure power supply and meet growing electricity demand. Order No. 1977 updates how FERC will implement the limited authority Congress gave it to site electricity transmission lines.
And on November 1, 2024, FERC will conduct a Commissioner-led technical conference on issues related to co-location of large loads at generating facilities.
The Commission needs to take this journey, Chairman Phillips says.
“Over the past year, we have seen transmission planners updating their load forecasts in response to dramatically increasing electricity demand from electrification, manufacturing and data centers."