Imagine a toll booth on a major highway. The toll booth can only process a certain number of cars at a time, so as traffic increases, cars get backed up. Extra lanes are opened, but the sheer volume of cars overwhelms any effort to move things along. Eventually, the system reaches a breaking point: cars wait in line, drivers get frustrated, and progress slows to a literal crawl.
MISO has faced a very similar challenge with its generation interconnection queue, or the lineup of generation projects waiting to connect to the grid. When the queue of cars at a toll booth exceeds processing capacity, even the best operational enhancements can’t keep up, leading to significant delays and inefficiencies. Similarly, as more developers have looked to add new energy sources, MISO has struggled to keep up with the increasingly large volume of requests in a given cycle. As more projects enter the queue, it also takes time to ensure that the grid can handle them without causing disruptions to reliability or the changing generation fleet.
To address this challenge, MISO has been implementing several strategic reforms while also making changes to comply with FERC Order 2023, which focuses on improving efficiency in the interconnection process. Stronger financial commitments and new withdrawal penalties help ensure that only the most-ready projects enter and remain in the queue. This reduces the likelihood of costly and time-consuming restudies caused by project withdrawals. Requiring greater site control further minimizes last-minute delays by ensuring developers have the legal rights to land where their projects will be built.
MISO expects the queue cap, approved by FERC in January 2025, to also make a significant impact. Returning to the analogy of a long line of cars, reducing the number of cars is still essential, as no amount of reform can overcome an unmanageable volume of requests. The queue cap limits the total megawatts of projects allowed per queue cycle in each MISO subregion, ensuring a more reasonable volume of projects to study. Applied to the 2025 cycle, the queue cap is already encouraging earlier submissions and a more feasible application volume. Progress can be tracked through the Queue Cap Tracker on MISO’s website, with the 2025 cycle set to close in September.
Another major improvement is coming from process automation. MISO is leveraging advanced software solutions to boost efficiency, with recent efforts focused on streamlining the time-intensive System Impact Study (SIS) phase early in the queue cycle. Benchmark analysis showed the new tool to be reliable, reducing early phase processing from months to just days. For context, early phase timelines grew from 278 days in the 2019 cycle to 793 days in 2022. With automation in place, MISO now estimates a 100-day timeframe for processing 2023 submissions currently underway.
Although these reforms help address queue volume, other challenges persist. Supply chain issues and regulatory approval challenges across the industry are delaying nearly half the projects MISO approves. To improve transparency, MISO launched a tool that lets stakeholders track the Commercial Operations Delivery (COD) date for projects that have already signed a Generator Interconnection Agreement (GIA) but may be delayed getting online because of factors outside of MISO’s control.
The other big challenge is how to more quickly add generation to the grid to avoid a gap between forecasted load and available capacity. MISO is working with stakeholders to create the Expedited Resource Addition Study (ERAS), an expedited process to fast-track urgent projects that are critical to grid reliability.
MISO will continue to tackle the generation interconnection challenges until the processing timeline is reduced to a one-year timeframe. With these new changes and improvements, MISO is better equipped to handle the growing energy demands while keeping the grid stable and reliable.