Source: Chart: US clean energy backlog balloons to… | Canary Media
Eric Wesoff, Maria Virginia Olano
Canary Media’s chart of the week translates crucial data about the clean energy transition into a visual format.
Wind, solar and energy storage developers are seeking to connect an almost inconceivably large 2 terawatts of renewable energy capacity to the U.S. grid, prompted by record-low prices and policy tailwinds, according to a recent study by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
To put that 2 terawatts (or 2,000 gigawatts) into perspective, the total capacity of all existing power plants on the U.S. electric grid is 1,250 gigawatts.
The gigantic figure is a clear signal that developers are ready to roll out renewables, but it also underscores a key problem: There’s not enough transmission capacity to support the country’s aspirations to electrify everything and transition away from fossil fuels. The growing cost and time to connect renewable projects to the grid have exposed weaknesses in utility processes and transmission planning that are hobbling the U.S. energy transition.
Utilities and transmission system operators require new projects looking to connect to the grid to undergo a series of complex impact studies before they can get built. These studies determine the amount that developers will have to pay for grid upgrades to allow their projects to deliver power to the system. It’s an inefficient model that has been criticized for unfairly imposing grid improvement costs on developers.
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