The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a comprehensive series of reforms to the California Independent System Operator's (ISO) interconnection process, ruling that the changes will help "ensure that interconnection customers are able to interconnect to the transmission system in a reliable, efficient, transparent, and timely manner."

Under terms of the 103-page order issued late Monday, the approved reforms are effective today, October 1. They will enable the ISO to move forward immediately with a fair, open, and transparent process based on proactive resource and transmission planning and project viability, allowing the most advanced generation projects to move more quickly through the interconnection queue.  

FERC's order called the ISO reforms "just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential," and said the ISO can now "effectively process the largest queue cluster (of interconnection applications) it has ever received."

A new screening process central to the reforms is designed to provide interconnection customers, load-serving entities, and the ISO with greater certainty when studies of interconnection applications are complete, putting the organization on track to ensure continued reliability and achievement of California's clean-energy requirements.

"Our tariff filing for a reformed interconnection process was complex and we fully acknowledge that stakeholders had a variety of opinions on some of the details," said Elliot Mainzer, the ISO's president and CEO.

"We appreciate the ruling by FERC and what it will mean for more efficient planning and onboarding of resources and we are committed to moving forward in partnership with our many stakeholders to effectively and transparently implement the reforms. As the order requires, we will also closely monitor how well they are working."

The ISO submitted its request for interconnection process changes on August 1. The filing followed more than a year of extensive engagement with stakeholders and a wide range of industry and developer representatives who worked together to develop many of the proposal's key concepts.

The reforms are part of a larger set of foundational framework improvements being coordinated between the ISO and California's principal state energy agencies as articulated in a 2022 Memorandum of Understanding between the ISO, the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission. The agreement sought to tighten linkages among resource and transmission planning activities, interconnection processes, and resource procurement.

When the ISO Board of Governors approved the interconnection proposal in June, Jan Shori, the Board chair, said they were needed to accommodate "explosive growth in the number of applications for grid interconnection studies the past three years," adding that "we need a new and improved process to prioritize and determine which projects are the most viable and which will meet our resource adequacy and reliability needs in a timely manner over the next 20 years."

Under the new protocols approved by FERC, interconnection requests for projects coming into the ISO during an annual application window will be scored based on commercial interest, project viability, and system need. The projects would then be ranked for their ability to advance to the study process, where they would be more fully evaluated.

The ISO would study projects up to 150 percent of available transmission capacity, increasing the likelihood that the most viable and cost-effective projects can advance without being delayed by excessive volumes of less feasible projects. The reforms, which are also designed to keep down costs by making the entire process more efficient, include a path forward for projects if they aren't in a geographic area with existing or planned transmission.

The approved reforms were designed to build on requirements established last July by FERC Order No. 2023, which set new standards for interconnection processes around the country. FERC approved the ISO's interconnection changes pending review of the ISO's compliance filing for Order No. 2023, which was submitted in May. 

To address outstanding interconnection issues that were not part of the current round of reforms, another track of enhancements is underway with stakeholders focused on deliverability allocations and more acute challenges created by recent "superclusters" which have seen unprecedented numbers of interconnection requests.

­­The California Independent System Operator (ISO) is a nonprofit public benefit corporation dedicated, with its partners, to continuous improvement and secure operation of a reliable grid operated for the benefit of consumers. It provides comprehensive grid planning, open and nondiscriminatory access to one of the largest networks of high-voltage transmission power lines in the world, and operates a $9 billion competitive electricity market. Recognizing the importance of the global climate challenge, the ISO is at the forefront of integrating renewable power and advanced technologies that will help provide a sustainable energy future efficiently and cleanly.

The Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) is a real-time wholesale energy trading market that enables participants anywhere in the West to buy and sell energy when needed. The WEIM Governing Body is the governing authority designed by regional stakeholders and has shared authority with the ISO Board of Governors to resolve rules specific to participation in the WEIM.