MISO announced further delays in its generator interconnection queue for the cycles of projects that entered in 2022, 2023 and 2025.

The grid operator said it does not expect to complete the second phase of studies for 2022 project entries until May 7, 2026. MISO similarly said 2023 project entries would not finish second phase studies until Sept. 3, 2026. The RTO conducts its interconnection studies in three phases.

The updated timeline is months behind what MISO originally said it could manage as it rolled out a new, automated study process.

In early 2025, MISO hoped to have all generation projects in the 2022, 2023 and 2025 cycles striking interconnection agreements over 2026, with 2025 project entries finishing up by year-end. (See MISO: New Software Effective, Faster than Previous Queue Study Process.)

Now, MISO does not expect the 2022 cycle of projects to execute generation agreements until early January 2027. The 2023 cycle would follow in late March 2027.

MISO reported that the 2022 class of generation hopefuls are experiencing modeling delays across all regions.

“We’re still so bogged down by previous cycles and restudies and the backlog churn,” Senior Manager of Resource Utilization Kyle Trotter explained at a meeting of the Interconnection Process Working Group on Jan. 27. “We have ’21, ’22, ’23 and ’25 all in flight at the same time.”

MISO is nearing completion on its 2021 cycle, save for a cascading model delay for projects located in its Central region.

The later timeline leaves the 2025 cycle of projects pushed later as well, though MISO has yet to estimate realistic dates. The RTO’s most recent queue processing chart targets the 2025 cycle’s dates according to the scheduling prescribed by FERC Order 2023. If MISO were to follow that, it would have to complete the second study phase by mid-July and sign interconnection agreements in early February 2027, months ahead of the expected wrap up of the 2023 group.

But Trotter said MISO would not begin the second batch of studies on the 2025 cycle of projects until it has sufficiently moved the 2023 cycle along. He said it would seek a waiver with FERC to delay studies for the 2025 cycle.

“We haven’t yet been in contact with FERC about it, in filing a waiver for the 2025 cycle,” Trotter said.

Trotter declined to provide more details on what exactly the RTO would request to waive. He said it is still discussing details internally with its legal team and must engage FERC before presenting its request to stakeholders.

David Ticknor, senior interconnection engineer at RES Group, reminded MISO of the importance of working quickly to approve projects so that renewables can secure federal tax credits before their discontinuation.

MISO in late 2025 refused stakeholders’ request to delay kicking off studies for the 2025 cycle to clear some of the four-year backlog before taking on more analyses. (See MISO Declines Stakeholder Ask for Pause on 2025 Queue to Clear Backlog.)

Stakeholders asked where it stands on acceptance of 2026 cycle of generation projects.

“We would project the 2026 cycle closing at the end of the year, similar to years past,” Trotter answered, adding that study kickoff would occur in early 2027.

In a related queue matter, MISO wants to standardize its collection of data from generation developers to help speed up its power flow modeling delays.

Manager of Resource Utilization Rob Lamoureux said the RTO needs rule changes to make sure it receives consistent modeling data from developers. He said it could complete studies faster and more accurately if it could draw on identical fields for modeling data.

Lamoureux said the various fields slow down MISO’s modeling and that a more regimented data collection would produce better models for Pearl Street’s SUGAR software, which the RTO is using to automate studies.

“Half of the files from ’23 and ’25 had to be manually reworked,” Lamoureux told stakeholders. He said MISO had to intervene to manually feed data into its systems for 50% of the modeling files from the 2023 cycle and 53% of files in the 2025 cycle.

He reminded stakeholders that MISO would face penalties of $1,000 to $2,500 per business day by the 2027 cycle under Order 2023 if it does not reasonably meet deadlines.

Ryan Westphal said MISO’s tariff currently permits more than a dozen formatting methods. In some cases, it receives conflicting data in redundant entries from the same developer, he said.

Lamoureux said MISO would put together a draft data standard for stakeholder review in time for the IPWG’s March 10 meeting.

“If we get these changes out soon, they could be implemented before the 2026 cycle,” he said.