Interconnection Queue Is the Biggest Bottleneck

The U.S. FERC interconnection queue held over 2,600 GW of proposed projects as of 2024 — roughly twice the entire installed U.S. generating capacity — with average wait times exceeding 5 years. FERC Order 2023 mandated a shift to cluster-based, first-ready-first-served processing, which should improve throughput but won't bear fruit until 2027 at earliest. The economic consequence is brutal: projects that are financeable on paper get stuck, developers bleed predevelopment capital, and tax credit transferability windows expire. Platforms that help developers navigate and model interconnection costs early — before land is locked up — are creating genuine option value. This is an underappreciated software wedge.