Speeding up the interconnection queues is becoming more important as demand growth and the retirement of existing generators combine to cut into reserve margins around the U.S., experts said during a webinar hosted by Advanced Energy United.

MISO is adamant that it should limit project proposals in future queue cycles to 50% of annual peak load to moderate its 300-GW, oversaturated queue.

FERC is considering additional changes to its rules on generator interconnections, with a technical conference set for Sept. 10-11 that saw pre-conference comments filed this week.

Infocast’s inaugural Midcontinent Clean Energy summit provided panelists a pulpit for critiquing MISO’s interconnection queue setup as it strains under the weight of hundreds of gigawatts intended to further fleet shift and meet load growth.

MISO's Todd Hillman described the pressure cooker environment of escalating data center demand, a precarious reliability situation and an overwhelmingly large interconnection queue at Infocast’s inaugural Midcontinent Clean Energy Summit.

MISO said its 123-GW collection of projects in the 2023 queue cycle will be subject to another delay into early 2025 as it pauses to see if a tech startup can help it better scale interconnection studies.

A recent webinar from Texas-based analytics firm Aurora Energy Research drew attention to promising and troubling trends alike in MISO’s interconnection queue process.

MISO plans to pursue a more straightforward, 50% peak load megawatt cap to limit the number of generator interconnection requests it will accept annually.