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Today, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Sierra Club that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission properly issued Order 2023—an order that directs grid operators to address longstanding delays with interconnection queues and speed up the process. Order 2023 required critical reforms to add more clean energy to the electricity grid. Sierra Club has engaged in defense of Order 2023 since its passage.
Due to years of poor planning, opaque study processes, and inability to address significant study delays, grid operators accumulated a backlog of projects that have been waiting for years to get connected to the grid. 95 percent of these projects stuck in the backlog are wind, solar, or batteries. FERC’s Order 2023 directed grid operators to address these long-standing backlogs and provide a pathway to meaningful interconnection queue reform.
Despite progress made on interconnection queues through the Order, many grid operators have undermined their own queues with “fast track” alternate queue processes. Sierra Club has been challenging these illegal fast tracks that underscore the current fossil favoritism agenda across grid operators in the country.
