Lilly McKenna Quoted on CAISO ‘Straw Proposal’ to Address California Interconnection Queue Backup

Energy development attorney Lilly McKenna is quoted in a New Project Media article that discusses efforts being taken by the California ISO (CAISO) to ease the backlog in the state’s interconnection queue, i.e., the collection of requests from operators of power generation and transmission projects seeking to connect to the power grid.

Over the summer, FERC approved a CAISO request to pause review of the most recent group (Cluster 15) of interconnection requests to give the agency time to grapple with Cluster 14, which contains applications amounting to a 241% increase above the previous record-high in a cluster.

At a September 28 meeting, stakeholders discussed a CAISO “Straw Proposal,” meant to reform the interconnection process to address the “unprecedented” interconnection request volumes that are “unsustainable in the ISO’s current process.” If approved, the proposal would introduce a “zonal approach” that encourages interconnections in transmission zones with available and approved transmission only, provide data on transmission constraints, and score projects based on viability criteria.

The backlog, which, according to McKenna is already worse for Cluster 15 than for Cluster 14, has prompted stakeholders to call for a broader overhaul of the interconnection process.

Read the full article here.