ERCOT’s Interconnection Queue: How quickly do batteries progress?

Exactly how long does it take battery energy storage systems to become commercially operational in ERCOT?
According to the May 2024 Generation Interconnection Status (GIS) report, more than 149 GW of battery energy storage is in the ERCOT Interconnection queue.
This number has been growing rapidly, up from 103 GW just twelve months ago - a 45% increase in just one year.
To be clear, many of these projects will never make it to commercial operations.
For the ones that do, they’re unlikely to make it online as fast as currently projected.
As of the beginning of June, 173 battery energy storage projects (larger than 9.9 MW) had both entered and exited the queue - with their entire development progress being visible in the GIS report.
Of these 173 projects:
- 132 did not reach commercial operations.
- Of those, 122 failed to either complete a Full Interconnection Study or sign an Interconnection Agreement before exiting the queue.
- At the time they exited the queue, 102 of these projects had completed a Screening Study and started a Full Interconnection Study - but had yet to sign an Interconnection Agreement.
However, of the remaining 51 projects that progressed to that point, 41 ultimately reached commercial operations.
From first appearing in the GIS report - either when a Full Interconnection Study was started or an Interconnection Agreement was signed - projects took a median of 1,004 days (just under 3 years) to become commercially operational.
40 of the 41 completed battery energy storage projects reached commercial operations in around 4 years or less.
And 7 of the 41 managed to reach commercial operations in under 2 years.
Interconnecting Entities - the organizations developing and/or submitting information on behalf of the project - consistently underestimate the time it will take to develop a battery energy storage system.
Historically, every successful project has reached commercial operations later than initially projected when it first entered the queue.
In fact, the median difference between the initial Commercial Operations Date projection and the actual Commercial Operations Date was 487 days (16 months).
#BatteryEnergyStorage #ERCOT

[@alexander8908]

How does this BESS performance trend in the States fairs against what or how Great Britain is utilizing their BESS assets deployment in the grid system (for renewables space) ?

[@modoenergy]

Hi, we actually saw deployment of BESS in Texas overtake GB this year. We discuss this a bit more in this episode of the podcast with Brandt ua-cam.com/video/cN7KGe-lk3Y/v-deo.html