The United States electricity grid is the largest machine ever built — a continent-spanning network of power plants, transmission lines, transformers, and substations that keeps the lights on for 330 million people. It was designed for a world of large, centralised, predictable power plants built near cities. It was not designed for a future of distributed renewable generation, and that mismatch is now a binding constraint on the energy transition.
The Queue
At the end of 2023, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory counted roughly 2,600 gigawatts (GW) of power generation and storage capacity waiting in interconnection queues across the United States — more than double the capacity of the entire existing U.S. generating fleet. Over 95% of that queue was zero-carbon: solar, wind, battery storage, or some hybrid combination. Many of these projects were fully designed, financed, and ready to build — blocked not by technology or market demand, but by the process of getting permission to connect to the grid.
The numbers in 2024 and 2025 continued to rise as the Inflation Reduction Act’s incentives attracted more project developers. Comparable backlogs exist in Europe and, increasingly, in countries scaling renewable deployment.
Why the Queue Is So Blocked
The problem is partly physical, partly procedural. Physically, the grid has limited capacity at many nodes. When a new solar farm wants to connect, the local transmission infrastructure may already be saturated. The project must often pay for upgrades — new substations, reconductoring, sometimes entirely new lines — and those upgrades can take years and cost more than the project itself.
Procedurally, the interconnection process in the U.S. was designed for a few large power plants per year, not a flood of smaller renewable projects. The old process was sequential: each project was studied in order, and each study considered whether the grid could accommodate it. If the grid was full at a given node, the project either paid for upgrades or dropped out. The process was slow, opaque, and inflexible.
Compounding the problem was commercial speculation. In some regions, developers submitted speculative interconnection requests for projects far from construction-ready, clogging the queue and delaying serious projects. When grid operators studied the queue, they had to assume all projects would connect, making the required upgrades look impossibly expensive.
The Reform Push
Regulators have begun to act. In July 2023, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Order 2023, a landmark reform of the interconnection process. It requires grid operators to conduct “cluster studies” — evaluating groups of projects together rather than sequentially — and imposes stricter readiness requirements so that speculative projects are weeded out early. It also mandates firm deadlines and penalties for delay on the grid-operator side and requires consideration of advanced transmission technologies.
Order 2023 is a major step, but implementation varies by region, and its full effect will take years to materialise. Additional FERC reforms, including transmission planning and cost-allocation rules — the question of who pays for large new lines that benefit multiple regions — remain contested.
Transmission itself is a deeper bottleneck. Major new high-voltage lines, which are needed to move renewable power from where it is produced (the windy Great Plains, the sunny Southwest) to where it is consumed (coastal cities), can take a decade or more to permit and build. Local opposition, state-level regulatory barriers, and the lack of federal siting authority for most lines slow the process. The infrastructure bill passed in 2021 included transmission funding and siting reforms, but the pace of construction remains far below what modelling suggests is needed.
The Canadian Parallel
Canada faces its own version of the problem, though smaller in absolute scale. The country’s concentrated hydroelectric resources in Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia require long-distance transmission to reach markets. Interprovincial interconnection remains limited, and the political economy of building transmission across provincial borders is challenging — electricity is a provincial jurisdiction under the constitution, and provinces have been reluctant to cede control.
Canada’s clean-electricity advantage — a grid that is already roughly 80% non-emitting — is an asset, but meeting growing demand from electrification (EVs, heat pumps, industrial processes) while maintaining reliability will require substantial new generation and transmission. The grid is not a solved problem.
Advanced Transmission Technologies
Several technologies could help at lower cost and faster than new lines:
- Dynamic line rating: Using real-time weather data to adjust the rated capacity of existing lines, rather than relying on conservative static ratings. Wind increases capacity and often coincides with high wind-power output.
- Advanced conductors: Replacing old conductors with new ones that can carry more current at higher temperature using existing towers and rights-of-way — a process called reconductoring.
- Grid-enhancing technologies (GETs): A suite of hardware and software tools, including topology optimisation and power-flow control, to squeeze more capacity from existing infrastructure.
- Energy storage co-location: Placing batteries at constrained nodes to absorb generation when the line is full and discharge when capacity is available, reducing the need for new transmission.
The Urgency
The grid is the pacing item for the energy transition. The IRA’s incentives, the rapid decline in solar and battery costs, and corporate demand for clean power have created a flood of generation projects. But a generating plant that cannot connect to the grid is stranded. The queue backlog is not just an administrative nuisance; it is a direct economic loss — projects that are delayed or cancelled, climate progress foregone, investment wasted.
What Needs to Happen
Solving the grid problem requires action on multiple fronts: interconnection-process reform, transmission planning and investment, advanced technologies, and a political and regulatory framework that treats transmission as a national priority. It also requires public acceptance — the “not in my backyard” factor that blocks lines in communities that will not see direct benefit.
Some of the most important work is not eyewateringly expensive technology but the grinding institutional work of reforming permitting, modernising studies, and coordinating across jurisdictions. It is unglamorous, it is slow, and it is absolutely essential.
The Generator Interconnection Queue Numbers
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s annual “Queued Up” report provides the definitive numbers on U.S. interconnection queues. At the end of 2023, queues contained roughly 2,600 GW of generation and storage capacity. Solar alone accounted for over 1,000 GW, with onshore wind around 300 GW, storage over 500 GW, and hybrid projects (solar-plus-storage) growing rapidly. The total exceeded the capacity of the entire existing U.S. generating fleet. About four-fifths of queued projects ultimately withdraw, and the average completion time for projects that do connect exceeds four years. The queue is both a signal of massive clean-energy demand and a monument to a broken process.
FERC Order 2023 in Practice
Order 2023, issued in July 2023, was the most significant interconnection reform in decades. It required cluster studies (groups rather than sequential review), firm deadlines, penalties for delays, and stricter financial commitments and site-control requirements to weed out speculative projects. It also required consideration of advanced transmission technologies. Implementation is phased and varies by regional transmission organisation. Early reports show that initial cluster studies are processing more quickly, but the real test — the rate of actual project completions — takes years to measure. The order is a genuine improvement, not a panacea.
Transmission Planning: The Hard Part
Order 2023 addresses interconnection — the local grid connection — but the deeper bottleneck is transmission, moving power hundreds of kilometres from where it is generated to where it is consumed. FERC’s 2024 Order 1920 on transmission planning requires long-term, scenario-based planning and broader cost allocation but was challenged in court and by states. Transmission lines are costly (hundreds of millions to billions of dollars), take 7-15 years, and face entrenched opposition from affected communities and states that do not directly benefit. The U.S. currently builds about 1% of its existing transmission capacity annually; estimates of what is needed for the energy transition range from double to triple that rate.
The Canadian Dimension
Canada’s interconnection and transmission challenges are both similar and distinct. Provincial jurisdiction means the federal government has limited authority to coordinate grid investments. Interprovincial transmission, which could allow Quebec and Manitoba’s abundant hydro to serve Ontario and the western provinces, is constrained by politics and regulatory complexity. Intentional islanding — the Atlantic provinces’ limited connection to North America’s grids — is a vulnerability and an opportunity. The Canadian electricity association estimates that substantial new transmission will be needed to meet 2050 net-zero targets, and opening the conversation across provinces is essential. As in the U.S., the grid itself may be the single most important infrastructure challenge of the energy transition.
Conclusion
The U.S. interconnection queue — 2,600 GW and growing — is a measure of two things: the enormous opportunity of the energy transition, and the enormous infrastructure deficit that threatens to slow it. The grid was not designed for this moment. Upgrading it is the least visible and most consequential climate challenge of the next decade. For Canada, the stakes are similar: the clean grid is an asset, but it must be expanded to meet growing demand or the country will find itself unable to electrify at the pace its climate goals demand. The energy transition runs on electrons, and electrons need wires. Right now, there are not enough of them — and fixing that is a matter of urgency, not luxury.
