The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 2023, a sweeping reform that requires grid operators nationwide to overhaul their interconnection processes and clear the years-long backlog of clean energy projects waiting to connect to the transmission system. The ruling rejects challenges from utilities and other stakeholders who argued FERC overstepped its authority, affirming that the commission acted within its mandate to ensure just, reasonable, and non-discriminatory wholesale electricity markets.
Interconnection queues have become the single largest bottleneck in the U.S. energy transition. As of late 2023, more than 2,600 gigawatts of generation and storage capacity — predominantly solar, wind, and batteries — sat in queues across the country’s regional transmission organizations, with average wait times exceeding five years. Order 2023 replaces the long-standing “first-come, first-served” study process with a cluster-based approach that groups projects by geography and readiness, imposes stricter financial commitments and commercial readiness milestones, and sets firm deadlines for transmission providers to complete impact studies.
The practical effect could be transformative. By forcing queue discipline and penalizing speculative projects that clog studies without intent to build, the reforms aim to accelerate viable projects while freeing up study resources. Grid operators including PJM, MISO, CAISO, and SPP are already implementing compliance filings, though implementation timelines and regional variations will determine how quickly the logjam breaks. Developers gain more certainty; ratepayers avoid the cost of stranded study work; and the grid gains a more predictable pipeline of resources needed for reliability and decarbonization goals.
Legal challenges to FERC’s authority over interconnection reform are likely not finished — rehearing requests or Supreme Court petitions remain possible — but the D.C. Circuit’s decision provides strong precedent that the commission’s jurisdictional reach extends to the procedural rules governing how resources access the transmission network. For an industry where permitting, siting, and supply chains already test project economics, removing the interconnection queue as a structural barrier marks a meaningful step toward a grid that can actually integrate the clean capacity the market is trying to build.
Read the full report at CleanTechnica.