Many renewables are stuck in the “interconnection queue,” a long line of projects waiting to get connected to the grid. According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, more than 1,500 gigawatts of power, mostly renewables, are waiting for approval to connect. (That’s more than one-third of all the power produced in the United States.)

That is really unfortunate. I’m in Canada, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we are in the same boat. Where I live, there is a lot of wind and solar going in, but my understanding is that this is in part because it’s one of the rare areas with an under-capacity grid that is not too far from several major urban centres.

And you can see how important the grid layout is in that solar farms are popping up mostly along large transmission corridors, presumably to allow for easier connection. This is less evident with wind, since geography plays a bigger role in where you want to put a wind farm for optimal results.

It makes me speculate that renewables like wind and hydroelectric (including pumped hydro storage) which are less negotiable in terms of location compared to solar are more likely to be waiting a long time on this interconnection queue? I don’t know if that is actually the case though.