Sharing existing interconnection capacity, along with re-using the interconnection capacity of aging and retiring plants, is the fastest and least expensive way to get new resources onto the grid. Existing peaking plants can even share their interconnection capacity with wind and solar resources to create a perfect combination of resource adequacy and renewable energy. The successful "surplus interconnection" and "energy displacement" processes offered by Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) show the speed and cost savings enabled by such sharing of interconnection capacity.
Friends! We are releasing a set of papers today outlining how #SurplusInterconnection can unlock GW of new resources. Surplus Interconnection is a way to plug wind and solar into existing thermal plants, sharing the interconnection facility of the existing plant. Surplus allows these plants to come online without waiting for years in an interconnection queue, since the existing thermal plant has interconnection rights. Most RTOs and utilities have a streamlined (90 day) process for surplus. Leveraging surplus interconnection could unleash 800 GW of energy the US needs today. We have three reports out: a technical paper outlining the potential (800 GW!) of surplus, and policy report laying out the barriers and potential policy to address those barriers, and finally, a briefing for policymakers that condenses the two papers into a short read. Check out our papers, along with a cool interactive dashboard, here: https://lnkd.in/g3h377ii And if you want to just read the short Utility Dive piece - that's here: https://lnkd.in/gUX7DbXq So many folks worked hard over the past year to make this work a reality - I can't list them all but Casey Baker, Amol Phadke, Umed Paliwal, Miles Farmer, Abraham Silverman were key authors of this work. GridLab
