ACORE Statement on FERC’s Actions on Interconnection and Reliability

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)’s initiation of several important proceedings today, American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)’s President and CEO Gregory Wetstone issued the following statement:“ACORE applauds the Commission for taking critical steps to improve the transmission interconnection process to address the more than 1,300 gigawatts of reliable, low-cost clean energy projects sitting idle in interconnection queues nationwide. By tackling this significant backlog, we can accelerate the renewable transition and meaningfully improve grid reliability. We are also encouraged by the Commission’s recognition of the threats posed by increasingly extreme weather and urge FERC to continue to improve grid resilience and reliability by addressing the needed expansion of interregional transmission in future rulemakings.”Background:

  • FERC issued the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) on regional transmission planning, cost allocation and generator interconnection in July 2021. ACORE Statement
  • In July 2021, ACORE issued a report, Transmission Makes the Power System Resilient to Extreme Weather, that details the value additional transmission would have provided during five recent severe weather events.
  • In October 2021, over two dozen organizations sent a letter to FERC Commissioners expressing their support for large-scale transmission.
  • The Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to reform the Commission’s electric regional transmission planning and cost allocation requirements in April 2022. ACORE Statement

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About ACORE:
For more than 20 years, the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) has been the nation’s premier pan-renewable nonprofit organization. ACORE unites finance, policy and technology to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy. For more information, please visit www.acore.org.

Media Contact:

Alex Hobson
Vice President of Communications
American Council on Renewable Energy
hobson@acore.org | 202.777.7584 (o) | 202.594.0706 (c)