The California Independent System Operator will soon unveil a new Grid Resource Interconnection Portal and a Points of Interconnection Heatmap.
Over the past year, the ISO has worked closely with stakeholders to improve the ISO’s interconnection process.
The new Grid Resource Interconnection Portal is part of that effort and will give interested parties more accessible information to more efficiently move projects through the interconnection process, the grid operator said.
Scheduled to launch on Oct. 1, “the new portal will streamline the process for integrating new energy resources, enhance coordination among various stakeholders, and improve management of interconnection requests.”
Once it’s operational and available on the ISO website, participants and ISO employees will have an interactive platform where they can, among other things:
- Submit a request to interconnect a project to the grid
- Provide clear information for transmission owners to understand the interconnection projects within their service area
- Review data, communicate deficiencies, and enable users to resolve data issues
- Track the study process, coordinate cluster study activities, and ensure participants are aware of required actions and overall progress
- Calculate required payments and communicate with participants on financial obligations
- Create and modify interconnection agreements
- Track construction progress after a Generator Interconnection Agreement is signed
FERC Order No. 2023
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 2023 requires system operators nationwide to improve their interconnection processes.
CAISO “has leaned heavily into creation of the interactive Grid Resource Interconnection Portal to help us meet and track required milestones, increasing the speed of interconnection queue processing and incorporating technological advancements into the interconnection process,” it said.
In addition, the portal will support the proposed changes to the ISO interconnection process that the ISO has requested the FERC to rule on by Oct. 1.
“It is crucial that the ISO maintain progress and add efficiency to the reformed interconnection process to connect new clean energy resources to the system at an accelerated pace,” CAISOI said.
With this new portal, stakeholders will have the resources needed to coordinate their interconnection requests, it said.
With funding from the Department of Energy, the ISO said it “will work to add specialized functionality for California state agencies and key stakeholders, enabling them to develop and track key metrics for interconnection progress, improved coordination, transparency, and accountability to meet state reliability and policy goals.”
Points of Interconnection Heatmap
Along with the new portal, CAISO is releasing a Points of Interconnection Heatmap.
This heatmap will show points of interconnection, with capacity, so stakeholders can see where they can interconnect to the grid. “It is highly interactive with the ability to add filters for various categories and will include a map of physical points of interconnection to provide a simple, visual representation.”
Creating this heatmap was a requirement of FERC Order No. 2023 “and the tool will ease some of the challenges of the process and, like the Grid Resource Interconnection Portal, help create a more transparent and streamlined process,” CAISO said.
