Utilities tell FERC: outage windows, queue uncertainty and communications hinder safe integration of large loads

Utility speakers described on-the-ground operational challenges in connecting very large loads. Brian Starling (Dominion Energy) said outage availability for construction—taking existing elements out of service to add new lines or equipment—has become a critical bottleneck: "we're almost to a point now where we can't take these elements out of service anymore." SRP described a large‑customer cluster process and showed that deposit and commitment requirements can dramatically shrink speculative queues: SRP studied 24 customers representing 7.2 GW of prospective load and, after upfront cost estimates and commitments, the queue decreased to roughly 900 MW.