One of the biggest barriers for developers today is the antiquated process by which new, large-scale energy projects connect to the transmission grid. After securing several important reforms to the generator interconnection process from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2023, Advanced Energy United didn’t settle, launching a multi-year effort to make foundational changes at power markets across the country so our industry’s projects no longer need to flounder in delay and uncertainty.

The initial set of reforms FERC produced in 2023 wasn’t holistic enough in scope to tackle many of the problems with the way generator interconnection queues are managed. We are fighting to make it easier for solar, wind, and energy storage infrastructure projects to move through interconnection queues and connect to the transmission grid in states across the country.

When FERC issued Order No. 2023, requiring wholesale markets to implement some of the reforms that Advanced Energy United advocated for, it set in motion a two-part second phase to our advocacy work for interconnection queue reform: a) good implementation of FERC’s guidance by the wholesale markets, and b) more holistic federal requirements from FERC for the way interconnection queues are managed.

Good implementation needed improved transparency and accountability of the status quo, so Advanced Energy United commissioned and released a now widely-cited report card for how wholesale markets, including regional transmission organizations (RTOs), have been doing at interconnection, with most regions getting Cs and Ds. As the grid operators make reforms, the industry will be using these grades as a baseline by which we can compare their progress.

Another step in our work to improve transparency was to create a guidebook for decisionmakers highlighting many of the challenges that project developers face during the interconnection queue process, explaining why some projects don’t make it to commercial operation.

Next, we commissioned a report, Unlocking America’s Energy: How to Efficiently Connect New Generation to the Grid, authored by Grid Strategies LLC and The Brattle Group, proposing additional holistic and specific reforms to the generator interconnection process, including significant input from the advanced energy business community.

We then took those reforms directly to FERC. At FERC’s workshop addressing generator interconnection the following month, every single panelist joined Advanced Energy United’s Caitlin Marquis in citing the reforms mentioned in the report, showcasing our organization’s unique problem-solving and consensus-building aptitude. That week, hundreds of clean energy professionals also joined Advanced Energy United in our first-ever #InterconnectionWeek public awareness campaign, posting online about the problems with the status quo and the solutions we are championing.

We followed that up with a report focusing on PJM Interconnection and how it could have saved up to $7 billion in costs if the grid operator’s interconnection process had functioned more efficiently. We made a point of ensuring the report was discussed widely at the 2025 Winter Summit for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).

Weeks after that report was released, PJM Interconnection announced it was pursuing one of Advanced Energy United’s recommendations, announcing a partnership with Google to use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate some of the more cumbersome interconnection queue processes.

In a press release about the partnership, Jon Gordon of Advanced Energy United said, “embracing innovation like this is a critical step toward clearing the massive interconnection backlog and getting more clean energy projects online faster. This kind of forward-thinking approach is exactly what we need to modernize the grid and lower costs for consumers.” 

Decision-makers are widely recognizing the problem–and the solution–to the interconnection challenges. Advanced Energy United continues to press PJM and other regional transmission organizations (RTOs) to implement technology innovations and policy changes to make it easier for energy project developers to connect to the transmission grid.