Event Coverage

DOE, CAISO host interconnection workshop at GridTECH Connect Forum

DOE, CAISO host interconnection workshop at GridTECH Connect Forum
(Jason Foster and Bob Emmert of CAISO hold court at GridTECH Connect Forum during the Department of Energy CAISO interconnection workshop.)

GridTECH Connect Forum begins with a deep-dive into California ISO’s interconnection reforms

Interconnection is changing in California, but the Department of Energy’s i2X team is here to help navigate the new process. The interconnection event GridTECH Connect Forum returned to California Monday and began with a DOE-led workshop focused on CAISO’s recent reforms.

“Quite simply, if we don’t solve for interconnection, we will not meet our 2035 goals,” explained Dexter Hendricks of the Solar Energy Technologies Office. Coincidentally, Hendricks’ first day with DOE was at GridTECH’s debut event in San Diego in 2023.

The package of reforms was approved earlier this month by the California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) Board of Governors after more than a year of engagement with stakeholders. Designed to increase reliability and help keep down costs, CAISO said the changes were needed because it had become “impossible” to process and analyze in a timely and meaningful manner the hundreds of interconnection applications that poured into the ISO each of the past several years.

CPUC resource portfolios call for more than 7,000 MW per year for the California ISO’s 2023-24 planning cycle, and interconnection requests continue to skyrocket. The reforms apply to cluster 15 (C15) and beyond, which marked a stark change to the volume CAISO would’ve had to research. C15 includes 347 GW via 541 interconnection requests. The previous cluster, C14, was 94 GW across 373 projects. CAISO processed about 185 GW total in the clusters before C14.

“My lawyer said we should call [C15] the ‘Super Duper Cluster’,” laughed Bob Emmert, senior manager of interconnection resources at CAISO. Although the moniker didn’t stick, the monstrous volume of requests forced the ISO to reevaluate its processes.

“Our coordination with the state agencies- we knew we had to coordinate our businesses better,” detailed Emmert, who spoke of a recently-revisited memorandum of understanding between the ISO and agencies like the California Energy Commission and CPUC. “We really want to get those projects [in C15] moving forward.”

CAISO’s FERC Order 2023 overview was filed on May 16, 2024 and “Generally adopts what FERC ordered us to do,” explains Emmert. It maintains a roughly two-year process from interconnection request to moving into the generation phase, roughly the same time frame CAISO had stuck to previously. It allows 150 days for cluster study (formerly Phase I), 150 days for reassessment, and 120 days for interconnection facilities study (formerly Phase II).

GridTECH Connect Forum attendees listen intently to the Department of Energy and CAISO’s interconnection workshop.

Under new protocols approved by the Board, ISO staff would evaluate interconnection applications with an emphasis on alignment with local and state resource and transmission planning and project readiness while continuing to maintain open access to the transmission grid. Its zonal approach integrates planning, procurement, and interconnection studies, providing accessible data prior to the cluster window.

Emmert emphasized data as a key to implementing CAISO’s approach. “We need to provide data, not to say ‘It’s on page 500 of the interconnection handbook,'” noted Emmert.

Interconnection requests for projects coming into the ISO during an annual application window would be scored based on commercial interest (30% of the total score), project viability (35%), and system need (35%). The projects would then be ranked for their ability to advance to the study process, where they would be more fully evaluated.

Although SETO argues we need to get four times as much renewable generation onto the grid annually to meet our long-term goals, California ISO and CPUC estimate the current interconnection queue already has roughly three times the needed wind and solar generation to meet the state’s 2045 benchmarks.

“We could stop today and be good,” declared Emmert. “But that’s not how the process works.”

The ISO will study projects up to 150% of available transmission capacity, which it says would increase the likelihood that the “most viable and cost-effective projects” can advance without being delayed by the volume of less feasible projects. The reforms also include a path forward for projects if they aren’t in a geographic area with existing or planned transmission.

The immediate action after the study process is to enter the contract process, explained Jason Foster, manager of queue management at California ISO. Foster says project modification requests represent the bulk of his office’s work, including material modifications, permissible technological advancements, construction sequencing, suspensions, and deliverability transfers.

Foster went over the IPE contract and queue management processes that have changed under the most-recent interconnection process enhancements. His office is implementing more stringent commercial viability criteria for projects to remain in the queue, applying limitations on TPD transferability to prevent circumvention of deliverability retention requirements, increasing modification study from 45 to 60 days, increasing modification deposit from $10k to $30k, and more.

“We want to do everything we can to get projects to commercial operations,” detailed Foster. “But there has got to be a limit to hanging out in the queue.”

Also participating in GridTECH’s opening workshop: Julie Mulvaney Kemp, research scientist at Berkeley Lab, and Ammar Qusaibaty, i2X co-lead, Solar Energy Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Kemp shared findings from a Berkeley Lab report on interconnection queues nationwide, showing CAISO leads all regions in capacity.

Kemp addressed several issues indicative of an interconnection problem across the country. Firstly, a low completion and high withdrawal rate: Of 18,132 requests, 72% ultimately withdrew, while 20% are operational and 8% are active. Another problem: an increase in the timeframe from interconnection request to interconnection agreement; and finally, an increase in the average cost to interconnect.

Julie Mulvaney Kemp of Berkeley Labs gives a presentation at GridTECH Connect Forum in Newport Beach, CA.

That set the table for Qusaibaty of the i2X team to dive into its transmission interconnection roadmap. Qusaibaty and company ended the workshop by presenting thought problems which attendees grouped up to solve by envisioning the interconnection process under specified conditions and parameters from various perspectives.

GridTECH Connect Forum continues with a full day of content on June 25.