Grid connections are the bottleneck for renewable electricity
NY Times reports on long delays when solar or wind energy projects apply to connect to the grid. While they look at only a few of the US regional grids, several year delays appear common. The permitting process for grid tie-in was scaled to deal with a few big natural gas (etc) power stations every year and is overloaded by the requests of thousands of smaller, distributed energy sources.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/23/climate/renewable-energy-us-electrical-grid.html
or https://archive.is/AngvN
Plans to install 3,000 acres of solar panels in Kentucky and Virginia are delayed for years. Wind farms in Minnesota and North Dakota have been abruptly canceled. And programs to encourage Massachusetts and Maine residents to adopt solar power are faltering.
The energy transition poised for takeoff in the United States amid record investment in wind, solar and other low-carbon technologies is facing a serious obstacle: The volume of projects has overwhelmed the nation's antiquated systems to connect new sources of electricity to homes and businesses.
So many projects are trying to squeeze through the approval process that delays can drag on for years, leaving some developers to throw up their hands and walk away.More than 8,100 energy projects - the vast majority of them wind, solar and batteries - were waiting for permission to connect to electric grids at the end of 2021, up from 5,600 the year before, jamming the system known as interconnection.
Much more detail and additional problems described in tfl. For example, as currently arranged, if you want to tie in a big solar farm, you may need to pay for grid upgrades...which are then available for free (if I read correctly) to additional solar projects. Thus, many projects will wait to see who jumps first. And these upgrades may not even be in your local area, the grid upgrade may be needed elsewhere.
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