grid connection

A 500kV, 125-mile transmission line between California and Arizona broke ground last week, promising to bring over 3GW of renewable energy capacity to the US Desert Southwest region.

Solar and energy storage deployment in the US could be accelerated under new proposals from the country’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) aimed at addressing significant backlogs in interconnection queues.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has released a whitepaper outlining the reforms it believes are needed to the US interconnection system, in which it lays out a series of proposals for both regional transmission organisations (RTO) and the US-wide Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

There was almost 1TW of renewable energy capacity and an estimated 427GW of storage active in US interconnection queues at the end of 2021 according to a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) analysis, which also showed that queues were growing year-on-year.

SolarPower Europe has issued a list of eight actions that will help Europe accelerate solar deployment to reach a total capacity of 1TW by 2030 and reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels imports.

Italian grid operator Terna will invest €9.5 billion (US$10.45 billion) to help improve the country's national transmission grid and build cross-border interconnections, paving the way for easier access for renewables.

Vietnam’s planned solar capacity is “too high” and needs to be downgraded, according to local media reports that reference a government communication.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should make interconnection reform a top priority to reduce the backlog of projects waiting to connect to the country’s grid, a coalition of three clean energy trade associations has said.

US power grid operator PJM Interconnection is progressing with efforts to transition to a new interconnection process as it looks to clear a backlog of projects including more than 136GW of solar capacity.