The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a final ruling in its quest to streamline generator interconnection and alleviate clogged queues across the U.S.
At the end of 2022, more than 2,000 GW of generation and storage were waiting in interconnection queues, according to FERC. The ruling on July 27 came out of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued last June.
The final rule requires all public utilities to adopt revised pro forma generator interconnection procedures and agreements to ensure that interconnection customers can interconnect to the transmission system in a reliable, efficient, transparent, and timely manner, and to prevent undue discrimination.
The final rule also imposes firm deadlines and establishes penalties if transmission providers fail to complete interconnection studies on time, but transmission providers may appeal their penalties at FERC. Additionally, the rule establishes a detailed affected systems study process, including uniform modeling standards and pro forma affected system agreements.
The final rule requires transmission providers to allow more than one generating facility to co-locate on a shared site behind a single interconnection point and share a single interconnection request. This reform creates a more efficient standardized procedure for these types of generating facility configurations, FERC said. Interconnection customers can add a generating facility to an existing interconnection request under certain circumstances without a request being automatically deemed a material modification.
Finally, the final rule requires transmission providers to evaluate alternative transmission technologies in their cluster studies and establishes modeling and performance standards for inverter-based resources.