Developers withdraw thousands of megawatts from interconnection queues after federal tax‑credit change, consultant says

Mark Pruett, principal of Power Bureau LLC, told the county board the interconnection queue is crowded and that only a minority of proposed projects get built. Pruett cited a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study showing that over the prior decade only about 21–24% of proposed projects in MISO and PJM were approved for connection, and only about 15% of proposed capacity was ultimately installed. “Over the past 10 years...only 15% of all the megawatts of generating capacity that's been proposed actually got built,” he said. He said the interconnection process is slow and often assigns high upgrade costs to projects, which can kill a project's economics or extend approvals for years. Pruett linked a recent federal change in investment tax credits for renewables to a mass withdrawal from queues: “Since July 1...MISO interconnection queue experienced a withdrawal of over 200 projects amounting to about 56,000 megawatts of projects,” he said, and added that developers facing an abrupt revenue reduction (he referenced an 11% revenue impact from the tax change example) are more likely to drop projects. Pruett explained that projects may be required to pay for transmission upgrades or wait multiple years for study results, which raises costs and risk for county-level permitting and for landowners who have leased sites for development. He said the queue is increasingly filled with “variable output resources” (wind and solar) that require more modeling and study than dispatchable plants. Discussion only: board members raised questions about who ultimately pays for network upgrades (consumers) and how sale or consolidation of early-stage projects affects bidding prospects; no local permitting actions occurred at the meeting. The consultant advised county officials to expect a changing developer community and to anticipate delays or project withdrawals as federal and state incentives evolve.