I must admit I was a little baffled when new legislation was passed into law six months ago to clear the customer interconnection backups at the distribution level. In late April 2023, a group of 35 organizations sent a letter to the governor’s office and the legislature calling for action about what they referred to as an “interconnection crisis.” The letter urged California policymakers to take urgent action to address unacceptable delays in connecting new housing developments, critical services, and EV charging stations. No doubt the delays have been unprecedented and slowing down California’s clean energy goals.
Typically, the transmission interconnection process is one of the major pillars that enables projects to be built and helps load-serving entities (LSEs) meet their RPS and resource adequacy requirements—but we’re talking about interconnection to the transmission system managed by the CAISO not the distribution system.
The crisis is real, and it needs to be prioritized at the transmission level, not the distribution level.
The LSEs are projected to fall well short of the 60% RPS goal mandated for 2030. The shortfall is 47 TWh, or about 15,000 to 20,000 MW of renewable capacity depending on the capacity factor. The response from the state legislators has been SB 410. Known as the Powering Up Californians Act, it directs the CPUC to set time periods for distribution grid connections and upgrades. The law directs the CPUC to set “reasonable average and maximum target energization time periods” by Sept. 30, 2024. Regulators will also set utility reporting requirements “so that electrical utility performance can be tracked and improved.” The bill also requires the CPUC to ensure that utilities “have sufficient and timely recovery of costs,” and allows for the CPUC to utilize a balancing mechanism for energization costs that exceed authorized rates.
I am not sure what SB 410 would accomplish. A better approach would involve simplifying the process for connecting new generation capacity to the grid or identifying necessary transmission upgrades to accommodate at least 15,000 MW of new capacity by the end of the decade. Currently, CAISO is delaying the connection of thousands of megawatts of renewable energy to the grid, while thousands of kilowatts remain backed up at the local distribution level.
Stay tuned for more on this topic in the next article.