Glossary

Interconnection queue

Also: grid queue, generator queue

The grid operator's list of power projects asking to connect to the grid, usually the first public trace of a solar, wind or storage site.

Before a solar farm, wind farm or battery site can sell power, it needs a connection to the high-voltage grid. The developer asks the grid operator for one, and the request joins the operator's interconnection queue, with its size, its fuel, its county and the substation it wants to connect to.

A queue entry comes years before construction, and most requests never get built: developers file for more sites than they will finish, and many drop out when the grid studies show what the connection will cost. A queue entry tells you a site exists. It does not tell you work is coming.

What moves a project closer is a signed interconnection agreement, the security posted with a notice to proceed, a construction stormwater permit and, last, ground work seen from satellite. Groundtrace reads every major operator's queue daily and ranks projects by those later signals. See every queue we read.