Reporting checked October 31, 2026. Worked examples are hypothetical. This article analyzes public records and proposes reporting methods; it does not allege misconduct by any named operator or provide legal advice on an individual application.
1. Progress can be real without a plant being finished
On June 17, 2026, PJM said more than 800 projects representing 220 gigawatts were being studied in the first cycle of its new interconnection process. The operator also emphasized that its study process was only the beginning of development and identified permitting and supply-chain challenges beyond that stage. These statements describe different milestones, and neither should be rewritten as an announcement that all the proposed capacity is producing electricity. PJM June 2026 update.
The distinction is central to a debate often reduced to a single large number. A national queue can contain an enormous amount of proposed generation and storage, yet the queue total does not measure completed infrastructure. It records requests moving through a process for assessing connection to the transmission system. Some projects advance, some change and some withdraw. The public needs to understand those transitions before assigning credit or blame.
There are two equally misleading shortcuts. One treats every queued project as a finished power plant being arbitrarily denied a plug. The other treats every withdrawal as evidence that the original proposal was frivolous. A project can be serious and still become uneconomic after a study identifies expensive upgrades. A project can clear an interconnection milestone and still lack financing, equipment or another permission necessary to build.
The useful question is therefore what the queue record establishes at a particular date. Has an application been accepted? Has a study been completed? Have costs been estimated or committed? Has an agreement been executed? Have network upgrades and the generating facility been constructed? Has commercial operation begun? Each answer changes the degree of confidence a planner should place in the proposed capacity.
This article follows those questions from the application through the statistics used to evaluate reform. It also explains why a shorter queue is not automatically a better outcome, why completion times require careful denominators, and why a cost estimate can be both important and provisional. The objective is a clearer account of where projects actually stand.
The issue matters to communities as well as developers. A local announcement can create expectations about jobs, tax revenue, electricity prices or reliability. Those expectations should be attached to a development stage rather than to a queue identifier alone. Honest uncertainty at the beginning is less damaging than a confident promise that quietly changes meaning at every later milestone.
2. An application describes a proposed electrical relationship
A generator does not connect to an abstract national socket. It proposes a relationship with a particular part of an electrical network. Its location, size, technology and operating characteristics can affect the studies needed to determine whether that connection can be accommodated and what changes are required. The queue is one administrative representation of that engineering process.
Berkeley Lab's February 2026 study of interconnection costs in five non-ISO balancing authorities describes studies assessing needed transmission infrastructure and assigning associated costs. Its dataset spans studies conducted between 2000 and 2024. The publication date is recent, but the underlying observations are historical, a distinction that matters when using the findings to discuss current conditions. Berkeley Lab non-ISO cost study.
For a hypothetical solar project, a proposed connection might initially look attractive because a transmission line is nearby. Physical proximity alone does not establish available capability. The study needs to consider how power would flow through the wider network under relevant conditions. A short distance to a line can coexist with substantial requirements elsewhere in the system.
The application also needs a consistent technical description. If the proposed equipment or maximum output changes, the study assumptions may need review. A spreadsheet entry with a project name and capacity cannot capture every engineering parameter. The public record is useful, but it should not be treated as a complete model of the proposed facility.
It helps to distinguish the project from its request. A developer may alter a proposal, submit a replacement request or divide a larger plan into phases. The analyst needs to know whether several queue rows represent independent projects, alternative designs or related components. Otherwise a total can exaggerate the amount of distinct development under consideration.
The opposite error is also possible. Combining related requests too aggressively can erase genuine phases with different schedules and connection requirements. The solution is not a universal rule that every name appearing twice is a duplicate. It is a documented relationship between records, based on identifiers and project information rather than an assumption drawn from similar names.
A responsible public description therefore says what is being counted: requests, distinct projects, proposed generating capacity, storage power, or another quantity. It identifies the date and source of the record. That modest precision prevents an application inventory from being mistaken for a construction schedule before the analysis has even begun.
3. The engineering study is more than a waiting period
Interconnection analysis is often described as delay, but elapsed time can contain different activities. Some time may be spent waiting for a study to begin. Some may be used to examine technical behavior, obtain missing information, coordinate with another system or revise assumptions after projects change. Understanding those components is necessary to distinguish avoidable administrative delay from work required to establish a reliable connection.
FERC's July 27, 2023, fact sheet describes reforms including cluster studies, readiness requirements, study deadlines and a more detailed affected-systems process. It also identifies provisions concerning co-located facilities and storage charging assumptions. These are features of the announced rule framework, not a claim that every regional implementation or individual application follows an identical schedule. FERC Order 2023 fact sheet.
A study asks how the proposed resource changes the network under the modeled conditions. A result can identify a need for new equipment or an upgrade. It can also reveal that the original proposal is feasible only with a different configuration or operating constraint. The output is therefore part of a design-and-cost decision, not merely an administrative stamp placed on a completed plant.
Consider a hypothetical project whose requested capacity triggers an expensive upgrade. A smaller request might avoid that requirement, or a different location might change it. Those alternatives need their own assessment; the analyst should not assume they are automatically acceptable. But the example shows why the developer may revise the proposal after receiving information rather than proceeding exactly as first filed.
The quality of the technical inputs matters. An incomplete or inaccurate equipment model can undermine the study even if the formal application is accepted. Conversely, a request for clarification can be necessary without implying that the developer acted carelessly. The public record should identify the issue and its effect on the schedule instead of treating every pause as the same kind of delay.
There is a legitimate trade-off between speed and confidence. A process that produces rapid but unreliable results can create later redesign, cost changes or operating problems. A process that demands unnecessary detail too early can burden applicants and slow useful projects. The relevant question is whether each information requirement and review step supports a defined decision.
A meaningful performance report should therefore measure both timeliness and the stability of the resulting decision. How often do completed studies require substantial revision, and why? Do later changes reflect new project choices, changed network assumptions or errors in the earlier work? Those distinctions reveal more about process quality than a single average number of days.
4. Cluster studies change the coordination problem
Studying projects together can reveal shared effects and opportunities that separate studies might handle less efficiently. It also creates dependencies among participants. When one project changes or withdraws, the assumptions supporting the cluster's upgrade plan and cost allocation may need to be revisited. Reforming the queue does not remove the electrical relationships among projects; it changes how the process manages them.
PJM's reform page describes its transition from a serial first-come approach to a cycle-based first-ready approach. The page also provides detailed guidance on permissible changes at particular decision points. That specificity matters: a regional process contains rules about when and how a request can change, not merely a general aspiration to move faster. PJM interconnection reform page.
Imagine three hypothetical projects sharing an upgrade. If one withdraws, the remaining projects may face a different allocation or a different technical solution. The effect is not necessarily a simple proportional increase. The original upgrade might still be required, a smaller one might suffice, or another constraint might become decisive. Only the relevant engineering and allocation rules can establish the result.
The public discussion should therefore distinguish a restudy from a repetition without purpose. Some restudies may be avoidable through better initial information or improved process design. Others respond to a material change in the population being studied. Calling them all needless bureaucracy obscures the problem; treating them all as inevitable prevents scrutiny of avoidable causes.
A useful cluster record would preserve the membership at each major decision point, significant changes, resulting study versions and the reason for a revised cost estimate. This is a proposed analytical practice, not a demand that sensitive system models be published without safeguards. The aim is to make the sequence understandable enough to identify where instability enters.
Cluster performance should also be evaluated as a cohort. Selecting only the projects that move quickly can make a new process appear more successful than it is. Combining transition projects with a new cycle without explanation can produce the opposite distortion. The analyst needs to know which rules applied to which requests and when those rules took effect.
The reform question is ultimately comparative: does the new process produce reliable decisions and viable connections more efficiently than the relevant alternative? A claim that one stage is faster is useful evidence, but it should be followed through to later stages. Otherwise the apparent improvement may simply move waiting time from one part of the development chain to another.
5. Readiness requirements screen projects and shape access
Financial deposits and site-control requirements can help identify applicants prepared to advance. They can also affect who can afford to enter the process and how early a developer must commit resources. Evaluating these requirements involves a balance between reducing speculative workload and preserving meaningful access for credible projects with different financing structures.
FERC's explanation of Order 2023-A clarifies several aspects of the framework, including when application deficiencies can be corrected and how transmission providers must justify variations from the standard provisions. It emphasizes that having adopted similar reforms does not automatically establish compliance with every requirement. That is a reason to read the applicable implementation rather than rely on a slogan about national reform. FERC Order 2023-A explainer.
A hypothetical small developer may have a technically promising site but limited capital available before receiving a credible upgrade estimate. A larger developer may be able to carry more early-stage financial exposure. That difference does not prove the readiness rule is unfair, but it is relevant when assessing who remains in the queue after the rule changes.
The policy question is not whether all requests should face no threshold. A process with no meaningful commitment can be overwhelmed by proposals that have little chance of proceeding. The question is whether the threshold is proportionate to the decision being made and whether applicants can obtain enough information to make that commitment intelligently.
A reform evaluation should look beyond the number of applications rejected or withdrawn. It should ask which categories of projects leave, at which stage, and for what documented reason. A reduction in low-quality applications can improve efficiency. A reduction in viable but less well-capitalized applicants may have different implications for competition and project diversity.
Reason codes need care. A withdrawal described as failure to meet a deadline may conceal several underlying causes, including financing, missing information or a changed development strategy. The public dataset may not be able to establish the full explanation. Analysts should report the recorded category while avoiding a confident psychological story about the developer's motives.
The best evidence would connect process requirements to outcomes across comparable cohorts, with attention to project size and stage. That analysis can reveal whether screening saves study resources while allowing serious projects to advance. It cannot be replaced by celebrating a smaller queue without asking what disappeared from it.
6. Upgrade costs are estimates attached to a scope
An interconnection cost estimate can include facilities at the connection point and broader network upgrades. Those categories answer different engineering needs and may follow different allocation rules. A single dollar figure is difficult to interpret without knowing its scope, study stage and the project capacity used as the denominator.
Berkeley Lab's February 2026 non-ISO cost report explicitly cautions that study-derived costs are preliminary rather than final settled amounts. It notes that withdrawn projects generally do not pay the full quoted upgrade cost and that actual costs for completed or operating projects can differ because of escalation or scope changes. Those limitations should accompany any use of the dataset. Berkeley Lab cost report PDF.
Suppose a hypothetical 200-megawatt project receives a 40-million-dollar upgrade estimate. Dividing by 200,000 kilowatts produces 200 dollars per kilowatt. If the project later reduces its request to 100 megawatts while the estimate remains 40 million dollars, the ratio becomes 400 dollars per kilowatt. The apparent unit-cost increase reflects a changed denominator, even before any construction price changes.
Now suppose a revised study reduces the upgrade scope and the estimate to 25 million dollars for the smaller project. Its unit cost becomes 250 dollars per kilowatt. The final comparison depends on both the capacity and the scope. An analysis that records only the latest cost beside the original capacity can create a misleading result while every individual source number is accurate.
Study estimates should also be separated from deposits, security and actual payments. A developer may commit funds at several milestones without having paid the full estimated construction cost. A report that calls every quoted amount an expenditure can exaggerate money spent on projects that later withdraw.
A useful cost history preserves the estimate date, study version, included facilities, allocation basis, capacity basis and status. It distinguishes nominal dollars from inflation-adjusted comparisons where relevant. The public does not need every invoice to understand the basic sequence, but it does need enough information to know whether two figures are comparable.
Cost uncertainty can itself affect development. A project may be difficult to finance when the plausible upgrade obligation remains wide. Reducing that uncertainty can be valuable even if the final expected cost does not fall. Reform should therefore be judged partly by how early it produces dependable information, not only by whether its lowest quoted cost becomes smaller.
7. Withdrawal is an outcome, not a complete explanation
A project can withdraw because of interconnection costs, market conditions, site problems, permitting, equipment availability, financing or a changed commercial strategy. Several factors may interact. A queue record commonly identifies the status more clearly than the cause, and an analyst should not fill that evidentiary gap with a preferred narrative.
The 2025 edition of Berkeley Lab's Queued Up report, covering data through the end of 2024, describes a decline in active queue volume associated with high withdrawals and fewer new requests. That historical example shows why a smaller queue can reflect exits rather than completed construction. It should not be presented as the current 2026 queue total. Berkeley Lab 2025 edition.
Imagine a hypothetical queue beginning a year with 1,000 megawatts of active requests. During the year, 300 megawatts enter, 100 reach operation and 400 withdraw. Ignoring other changes, the year ends with 800 megawatts active. The queue has shrunk by 20 percent, but only one fifth of the departing 400-plus-100 megawatts became operating capacity. A shrinking backlog alone does not identify the type of progress.
The example also shows why gross flows matter. Reporting only the net reduction hides both new interest and completed projects. A balanced account should show entries, operational completions, withdrawals and other changes separately, then reconcile them to the ending inventory. Capacity revisions and reclassifications should be explained rather than treated as mysterious residuals.
Withdrawal rates can still provide important information. A high rate of late-stage withdrawal may indicate that substantial study effort is being spent on projects that do not proceed. But the rate needs a defined cohort and observation period. A recently entered project has had less opportunity to complete or withdraw than one submitted a decade earlier.
Analysts should also distinguish a withdrawn request from a permanently abandoned development idea. A revised project may return under another identifier. Without a link between records, the dataset can count an exit and a new entry while the underlying development continues in altered form. That does not make the recorded statuses wrong; it limits the conclusion they support.
The fair conclusion is often narrower than the headline. The record may establish that an application left the process after a particular study, while the reason remains partly unknown. That is still useful evidence. It points to the next document needed rather than converting a status code into an unsupported verdict on the project.
8. Completion times need a starting point and an ending point
A claim that interconnection takes several years is incomplete until it names the interval. Time from application to a completed study differs from time to an executed agreement, and both differ from time to commercial operation. Comparing these measures as though they were identical can create a false appearance of improvement or deterioration.
The Department of Energy's April 2024 Transmission Interconnection Roadmap separates interconnection challenges from broader development issues such as permitting and supply chains. It also discusses different outcome measures and the importance of transparency after an agreement is signed. The roadmap offers strategies rather than a single mandatory package of fixes. DOE transmission roadmap.
Consider a hypothetical project that applies in January 2021, signs an agreement in January 2024 and begins commercial operation in January 2026. Its application-to-agreement interval is three years. Its application-to-operation interval is five years. Both numbers are correct, but they describe different portions of development. A reform claim must state which interval changed.
The chosen population matters just as much. Measuring only projects that reached operation excludes projects still waiting and projects that withdrew. This survivor group can provide useful information about successful development, but its average time is not the expected waiting time for a new applicant. The analyst should avoid converting one into the other without an appropriate statistical model.
Recent cohorts present a particular challenge because many outcomes remain unresolved. If only the fastest projects have completed, the observed completion time can look artificially short. Conversely, a year containing unusually old completions can produce a high median even while processing of new applications has improved. The dataset needs both entry cohorts and completion-year views to explain the pattern.
A simple table can help. For each application cohort, show the number and capacity operational, withdrawn and still active at the observation date, alongside the time distribution for each observed transition. That keeps unfinished cases visible. It also makes clear that a final completion rate cannot yet be known for a young cohort.
Time comparisons should preserve changes in process definitions. A new cycle may use a different formal application date or combine stages that were previously separate. Those changes can be sensible, but they complicate a direct before-and-after chart. The analyst should describe the mapping rather than treating similarly named dates as automatically equivalent.
9. National totals require regional translation
A national queue dataset combines records created by different organizations for different operational purposes. Fields may be named differently, status categories may not align perfectly and some information may be missing. A useful compilation adds consistency, but the resulting total should retain the limitations of the underlying records.
Berkeley Lab's current Queued Up landing page identifies a 2026 edition covering requests as of the end of 2025 and links the project data and related analyses. The publication year and data cutoff are separate facts. A reader in October 2026 should not mistake the end-of-2025 snapshot for a live count of every request on today's grid. Berkeley Lab current queue collection, 2026 edition publication page.
Technology categories can complicate aggregation. A hybrid project may contain generation and storage behind a shared connection. Adding each component's nameplate capacity can be appropriate for describing equipment proposals, but it may exceed the power the common interconnection can export at one time. The analyst must specify whether the total represents equipment capacity or requested grid injection.
Storage creates an additional unit problem. Megawatts describe power, while megawatt-hours describe energy. A queue record with storage power alone cannot establish discharge duration. Combining storage megawatts with generating megawatts may describe proposed connection capacity, but it does not establish an equivalent amount of annual electricity production or firm supply.
Geographic totals can also be sensitive to the chosen region. A balancing area, market footprint, state boundary and utility service territory are not interchangeable. A project near a boundary may affect more than one system. A map can be useful, but its administrative outline should not be treated as a complete representation of electrical influence.
Missing values deserve explicit treatment. If an analyst estimates an unreported component, the imputation should be identified and sensitivity shown where it materially affects the result. A blank should not silently become zero, and an estimate should not be formatted as though it were a directly reported measurement. Precision in the output cannot repair uncertainty in the input.
The purpose of national harmonization is comparison, not erasure of regional meaning. A strong report explains the crosswalk between source categories and its own categories. That allows a reader to understand why a national total differs from a regional dashboard and whether the difference reflects timing, scope, definitions or an actual data problem.
10. An agreement is a milestone with work still attached
An executed interconnection agreement can resolve important obligations and move a project closer to operation. It does not establish that the generating plant and all required network work have been completed. A public announcement should describe the agreement as a development milestone while identifying the remaining construction and commercial steps.
PJM's June 2026 update explicitly drew this distinction when discussing projects with signed agreements and obstacles beyond its study process. The operator's statement is its own account of progress; it should be attributed as such rather than treated as an independent audit of every listed project. PJM process update.
A hypothetical project may have an agreement but still be waiting for a transformer, a construction permit or financing. Another may have built much of the generating facility while network upgrades remain unfinished. A third may have completed physical construction but still be undergoing testing and commissioning. Their remaining risks differ, even if a simplified database assigns them the same broad status.
The public record should therefore distinguish readiness of the generation facility from readiness of the interconnection facilities. These workstreams may have different owners and schedules. A delay in one can prevent the combined project from operating even when the other is complete. Assigning all elapsed time to the queue operator can be as misleading as ignoring the operator's responsibilities entirely.
A milestone schedule can make dependencies visible. It identifies which task must finish before another can begin, which activities can proceed in parallel and which dates are estimates rather than commitments. The useful question becomes which dependency currently controls the earliest credible operating date, not simply how old the application is.
Commercial operation should itself be tied to a defined record. Initial energization, first generation, test operation and full commercial service may occur on different dates. An article celebrating first power should not automatically describe the entire requested capacity as commercially available. The distinction matters for both reliability planning and promises made to local communities.
Following the project beyond the agreement also improves evaluation of reform. If studies accelerate but completed capacity does not, the next bottleneck may lie elsewhere. That does not negate the study improvement. It tells decision-makers where additional effort is needed and prevents one institution from being credited or blamed for the entire development chain.
11. Cost allocation is a distributional decision
An upgrade can benefit more than one project or user, but assigning its cost requires rules and evidence about the relevant impacts and benefits. The technical need for an upgrade and the financial responsibility for paying for it are connected but distinct questions. Public debate often becomes confused when one is offered as a complete answer to the other.
FERC's Order 2023-A explainer discusses allocation of cluster network-upgrade costs and clarifies aspects of substation cost allocation. The details show why a reader should identify the applicable category and regional implementation before assuming that every upgrade is divided by project size or paid by the first applicant. FERC allocation explanation.
In a hypothetical cluster, two projects may contribute differently to a constraint. An equal split can be simple without being the applicable rule. A proportional split by nameplate capacity can also be intuitive without matching the engineering impact. The correct analysis begins with the actual allocation method and the study that applies it.
A dispute over allocation does not necessarily mean the upgrade is unnecessary. Nor does a technically justified upgrade automatically establish that a particular allocation is the fairest policy. Keeping these questions separate allows stakeholders to challenge the right part of the decision rather than arguing past one another.
The timing of payment can also affect feasibility. A project may face a large early obligation for infrastructure whose benefits extend beyond its own output. Whether reimbursement, sharing or another mechanism applies depends on the governing arrangements. An article should not infer those rights from a general description of interconnection reform.
For public oversight, the useful documents identify the upgrade, estimated cost, allocation basis, responsible entities and treatment of later changes. Where confidential or security-sensitive details cannot be released, a public explanation should still make the logic understandable at an appropriate level. Secrecy about technical models need not require complete silence about who pays and why.
The broader policy challenge is to align efficient development with reliable network investment and fair access. No single cost-allocation slogan resolves that challenge in every setting. Evidence about project outcomes, upgrade utilization and changing estimates can improve the debate, but the distributional choices should remain visible rather than being presented as unavoidable consequences of arithmetic alone.
12. Evaluate reform using a balanced set of outcomes
A reform can reduce application volume, shorten a study stage, improve cost certainty or increase completed capacity. These are related objectives, but one can improve while another worsens. A balanced evaluation should report several outcomes and explain the trade-offs instead of selecting whichever metric makes the reform look most successful.
The DOE roadmap organizes its proposals around data access, process improvement, economic efficiency and reliability. Its broader lesson is that interconnection reform is a collection of linked tasks rather than a single queue-clearing exercise. The document's goals are proposals for improvement, not evidence that those improvements have already occurred. DOE roadmap.
A useful evaluation could begin with timeliness: how long comparable requests spend in each stage, including unresolved cases. It could then examine decision quality: how often results change materially and why. It could examine cost certainty and the distribution of costs. Finally, it could follow projects to operation while identifying development barriers outside the study process.
The evaluation should also account for the changing workload. A process handling a different mix of project sizes, technologies and locations may face a different engineering burden. Simply dividing completed studies by staff count or comparing annual totals can miss that change. The analyst should describe the workload rather than assuming every request requires equivalent effort.
A before-and-after comparison needs a credible counterfactual. Electricity markets, equipment availability and financing conditions may change at the same time as the rules. If more projects complete afterward, the reform may have contributed, but the entire difference cannot automatically be attributed to it. Careful analysis can identify plausible mechanisms without pretending that every influence has been isolated.
Transparency should include negative and mixed results. A reform that speeds early review but increases late-stage uncertainty needs adjustment, not a forced declaration of success or failure. A process that removes weak applications while preserving access for credible projects may be working even if the total queue shrinks sharply. The interpretation depends on the evidence behind the movement.
The most useful public report states what has been observed, what remains too early to judge and what would count as improvement in the next period. That gives the reform a testable trajectory. It also prevents a temporary administrative milestone from becoming a permanent claim about infrastructure that has not yet been built.
13. Follow the next unresolved dependency
For an individual project, the most informative question is often narrower than the national debate: what is the next unresolved dependency preventing this project from advancing? The answer might be a study, an applicant decision, a network upgrade, equipment delivery, financing or a permit. Naming it directs attention to the institution and evidence that can resolve it.
A proposed reporting template would show the current stage, the last completed milestone, the next required decision and the basis for the expected date. It would separate a target supplied by the developer from a date confirmed by another responsible party. It would identify material changes without implying that every schedule revision is misconduct or incompetence.
For local communities, this approach is more useful than repeating the requested megawatts at every announcement. Residents can understand that a project has advanced while still seeing the remaining uncertainty. Public officials can avoid promising a tax base or reliability benefit on a date that depends on several uncompleted tasks.
For system planners, the same discipline supports realistic scenarios. Proposed capacity can be grouped by development stage and relevant risks rather than counted at full value merely because it appears in a queue. A range of completion outcomes may be more informative than a single forecast that obscures the assumptions attached to early-stage projects.
For journalists, the key habit is to preserve the verbs. Applied, studied, approved, contracted, constructed, energized and operating are not interchangeable. Each verb should be supported by the appropriate record. A project can move through several of them in a short period, but an article should not skip the evidence between them for the sake of a cleaner narrative.
The record also needs a correction policy. Project names, capacities and dates can be revised as operators receive better information. An analyst should preserve the source snapshot used for a published claim and explain material corrections in later editions. Otherwise readers can encounter two different totals and mistake a data revision for a sudden physical change in the grid. A versioned dataset allows the analyst to distinguish new applications, actual project transitions and corrections to earlier entries. That distinction is especially important when a public dashboard updates continuously while an annual report remains fixed at its year-end cutoff. Comparing those products requires matching their dates and definitions before calculating a trend. A discrepancy can be informative, but only after the underlying records have been reconciled.
The queue is therefore best understood as a changing record of decisions about proposed connections. Its size reveals interest and workload. Its transitions reveal development outcomes. Its studies reveal technical and financial requirements. None of those measures alone establishes how much electricity will be available to customers on a future date.
A reliable account follows the project until the claimed outcome is reached. It recognizes real improvements in processing without confusing them with completed plants, and it recognizes real barriers without inventing motives. The result is less dramatic than declaring that the grid has either been fixed or hopelessly blocked. It is also far more useful for deciding what needs to happen next.