As the national energy landscape undergoes rapid transformation, one glaring inefficiency becomes apparent. The country's interconnection infrastructure is not up to the task.

A new report by the clean energy advocacy group Advanced Energy United argues that grid reform is essential to realize the full potential of renewable and energy storage technology.

Published in November, "How Interconnection Reform Can Accelerate Clean Energy Deployment" notes that the process of identifying and implementing interconnection upgrades in the United States is getting longer. Projects that have recently come online may have been in the works for up to five years. This is more than double the typical two years it took for projects to get approved 20 years ago. Most of the delayed projects, more than 95%, are tied to renewables and storage.

This backlog is made more acute because of the rapid growth of clean energy technology and the urgent need to bring these resources online. The report emphasizes the importance of addressing this problem. It projects that interconnection reform resulting in expedited processing of projects in the queue could dramatically boost deployment of grid-scale clean energy, producing almost $100 billion in economic growth and over a million jobs.

Clean energy deployment could increase by as much as 60% by 2030 and 90% by 2040. The added capacity could supply almost 50 million homes with 100% clean energy in 2030, growing to 71 million homes by 2040.

The report strikes an optimistic tone, noting that new rules from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will speed up queue processing and promote better transmission planning. Order 2023 from 2023 prioritizes "mature" projects for processing. Order 1920, adopted this spring, requires long-term transmission planning with a 20-year outlook.

These reforms will help bring more projects online. The report encourages states to support the implementation of these reforms. They also can take advantage of the billions of dollars offered by the Department of Energy to support these efforts.