Every developer in American energy now works from the same map, whether they know it or not: the interconnection queue. It lists, region by region, the projects waiting to connect to the transmission grid, their sizes, their technologies, and how far each has advanced. Read naively, it is a backlog. Read well, it is the best public picture of where the grid has room, where it does not, and where a new project would be walking into a traffic jam.
The latest edition of that map is striking. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Queued Up 2026 edition counts 2,061 gigawatts actively seeking interconnection at the end of 2025, down 10% from the prior year and well below the peak of nearly 2,600 GW at the end of 2023. The composition matters more than the total: solar accounts for 773 GW, storage for 749 GW, wind for 220 GW, and natural gas — the only technology that grew, up 86% — for 253 GW. A developer siting solar today is not competing with a generic queue. The developer is competing, overwhelmingly, with other solar and storage projects, often in the same regions and on the same constrained lines.
Geography sharpens the picture further. Active queue capacity is highest in the non-ISO West at 567 GW, followed by ERCOT at 408 GW, and capacity fell in 2025 in every region except ERCOT and SPP. More than a quarter of active capacity — 536 GW — already holds a draft or executed interconnection agreement, including 32% of solar, 33% of wind, and 22% of storage capacity. That distinction is the difference between a project and a placeholder: capacity with an agreement has survived studies, posted security, and priced its upgrades. Capacity without one has survived nothing yet, and the queue treats both the same until it does not.
The reform meant to sort the two is now the operating system of the queue. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Order No. 2023 replaced first-come, first-served serial studies with a first-ready, first-served cluster study process: a 45-calendar-day request window, a 60-calendar-day customer engagement window, and a single-phase cluster study to be completed within 150 days, with readiness deposits and withdrawal penalties designed to push speculative projects out early. Several grid operators have layered their own reforms on top, including limited-term fast-track programs for reliability-critical generation. Berkeley Lab's early read is cautious but real: annual interconnection agreement processing volume rose in most regions with data, and CAISO, ERCOT, SPP, and MISO each signed a record capacity of agreements in 2025, with CAISO and ERCOT each executing more than 30 GW.
The honest caveat is that reform has not yet shortened the journey that matters. The median duration from request to signed agreement was well over three years in 2025, and the median time to commercial operations exceeds five years. Cluster studies compress the study phase; they do not compress county hearings, land assembly, equipment procurement, or the construction of the upgrades the study identifies. A developer who reads a 150-day study clock as a 150-day project clock will be disappointed on a schedule the developer should have seen coming.
So how should a developer use the queue as a map? First, treat agreement status as the primary filter: sites near capacity that already holds agreements are sites near projects that will actually be built, with upgrade costs already socialized or assigned. Second, treat regional direction as signal: a region whose queue is shrinking because projects are withdrawing is different from a region whose queue is shrinking because agreements are being signed, and only the second is good news. Third, site the project the queue wants — storage paired with solar where the queue is solar-heavy, or a smaller project that fits headroom the cluster study has already identified — rather than the project the developer wishes the queue wanted. The queue is not a waiting room. It is a market, and like every market, it rewards the participant who reads it before entering it.
Sources: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Queued Up: 2026 Edition (2,061 GW active at end of 2025; solar 773 GW; storage 749 GW; wind 220 GW; natural gas 253 GW, up 86%; peak nearly 2,600 GW at end of 2023; non-ISO West 567 GW; ERCOT 408 GW; 536 GW with draft or executed agreement; 32% of solar, 33% of wind, 22% of storage with agreements; record agreement volumes at CAISO, ERCOT, SPP, and MISO in 2025, each over 30 GW at CAISO and ERCOT; median request-to-agreement well over 3 years; median request-to-operation over 5 years), https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/queued-2026-edition-characteristics and https://emp.lbl.gov/news/backlog-power-plants-seeking-transmission-grid-connection-eased-somewhat-2025-amidst. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 2023 (45-day request window; 60-day engagement window; 150-day cluster study; first-ready, first-served process), summary at https://www.troutman.com/insights/troutman-pepper-summary-of-ferc-order-no-2023-on-generator-interconnection-reform/.