Queued Up: 2026 Edition — Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection as of the End of 2025
Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryJoseph Rand, Anna Cheyette, Chris Talley, Steven Zhang, Will Gorman, Ryan Wiser, Joachim Seel, Seongeun Jeong, Fritz Kahrl01 Jun 2026national-labRead the original
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's annual survey of US interconnection queues finds about 2,061 GW of capacity awaiting grid connection at the end of 2025 — roughly 1,312 GW of generation and 749 GW of storage. The composition shifted sharply during the year: natural gas in the queues rose about 86 percent while solar, wind and storage each fell between 16 and 19 percent. Turnover is high, with more than 750 GW withdrawing during 2025 against roughly 600 GW of new requests. Completion rates remain low. Of projects requesting interconnection between 2000 and 2020, only about 19 percent of projects and 13 percent of capacity had reached commercial operation, and more than 70 percent of requests are eventually withdrawn. Timelines have lengthened considerably: the median project reaching operation in 2025 took 61 months from request to commercial operation, against 36 months for projects completed in 2015.
Extract
"Roughly 2,061 gigawatts (GW) of capacity was actively seeking interconnection (1,312 GW of generation; 749 GW of storage)." "Natural gas capacity increased (+86%), while solar (-19%), storage (-16%), and wind (-19%) decreased in 2025." "Over 750 GW of capacity withdrew in 2025, while about 600 GW submitted new requests." "About 19% of projects (13% of capacity) requesting interconnection from 2000-2020 reached commercial operations." "The median project built in 2025 took 61 months from the interconnection request to commercial operations." "41% of capacity that signed IAs 2000-2022 had withdrawn by the end of 2025." "The majority (>70%) of interconnection requests are withdrawn."
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · national-lab · Read the original
The MyGreenSuit briefing
Commentary by MyGreenSuit, not the words of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Two thousand gigawatts is roughly two and a half times the entire US generating fleet. It is also, mostly, fiction — and Berkeley Lab are unusually direct about saying so. More than 70 percent of interconnection requests are eventually withdrawn, and 41 percent of projects that got as far as a signed interconnection agreement withdrew anyway.
That second number is the one to remember. A signed agreement is meant to be the point at which a project becomes real. Four in ten are not.
The composition shift is the news in this edition: gas in the queues up 86 percent while solar, wind and storage each fell 16 to 19 percent. Read that against turbine lead times and a fair share of that gas is queueing for equipment it cannot get.
The structural problem is that a queue position is nearly free and studying it is expensive, so speculation is rational and the cost lands on everyone behind you. The median project reaching operation in 2025 took 61 months. In 2015 it took 36.
The obvious fix — make holding a position expensive — is also the obvious way to hand the queue to whoever has the deepest balance sheet. Any reform worth backing has to price out speculation without pricing out the small developer with a good site. That is a harder design problem than either side of this argument usually admits.