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But the bill introduced by Manchin last month doesn’t directly address a major obstacle on the nation’s road to a cleaner energy future: debilitatingly long interconnection queues, with wait times to connect to the electric grid increasing as the number of projects getting in line has grown.

Instead, , treats environmental reviews of projects as a greater obstacle — despite evidence that a lack of grid interconnection is a far greater cause of project delays than environmental restrictions.

Renewable energy developers cited grid interconnection delays as a leading cause of project cancellation, significantly more than environmental restrictions, in a survey of utility-scale wind and solar developers published by a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory in January.

Grid interconnection a commonly cited problem

More than 70% of solar energy-developing respondents reported grid interconnection as one of the top three causes of project delays of six months or more — the most commonly cited cause by over 20%.

Grid interconnection also was the most frequently cited top-three cause of project delays of six months or more by wind energy developers, with roughly 65% of those developers ranking it in the top three.

Grid connection was the second-most commonly cited top-three cause of solar project cancellation in the past five years, behind only local ordinances or zoning, according to the report published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Over 25% of wind and 20% of solar developers listed interconnection as the primary cause of significant project delays. Interconnection was the only cause that both solar and wind developers cited in their top two responses. Environmental restrictions were one of the least common primary causes of project delay at roughly 7% for wind and 4% for solar developers.

Respondents were employed at 62 companies responsible for approximately half of the wind and solar developed from 2016 to 2023, per the laboratory.

The U.S. interconnection backlog climbed 27.3% in 2023 over 2022, according to another report released by the laboratory in April. Solar, storage (99% battery) and wind made up 95% of active capacity in queues, with gas comprising just 3%.

The typical project built in 2023 took nearly five years from the interconnection request to commercial operations, compared with three years in 2015 and fewer than two years in 2008, per the study.

The Energy Permitting Reform Act, advanced by the Manchin-led Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a bipartisan vote last month, has drawn criticism for not doing more to address grid interconnection wait times.

“Renewable developers cite grid interconnection as the leading cause of project cancellation >4x [over four times] more than enviro[nmental] restrictions, but the permitting reform bill doesn’t address interconnection procedures?� former Obama Department of Energy advisor responding to the Manchin proposal by citing the Berkeley laboratory study.

Manchin’s defense of his bill

A Manchin spokesperson said a fundamental issue with slow interconnection timelines is inadequate grid infrastructure.

“[T]o fix this problem, the Energy Permitting Reform Act includes many provisions to build out and upgrade our disjointed energy transmission system in a timely and transparent way,� the spokesperson said in response to a Gazette-Mail inquiry as to why the bill doesn’t do more to address grid interconnection issues.

Evan Vaughan, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition, a renewable energy industry group, said the bill includes what he called critical reforms to siting authority for interstate electric transmission lines and improved interregional transmission planning.

The bill would allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue a construction permit for a project in a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor — a Department of Energy-designated geographic area where the agency finds consumers are harmed by a lack of transmission — after allowing state siting authorities one year to act on a permit application.

The bill also would direct FERC, which regulates interstate electricity transmission, to deliver a rule interregional transmission planning within 180 days that requires neighboring transmission planning regions to:

• Plan jointly with each other
• Submit to FERC for approval the resulting joint interregional transmission plans
• Establish rate treatments for interregional transmission planning and cost allocation

Vaughan said he believes the bill’s reforms would help alleviate interconnection bottlenecks.

Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia president Charlie Burd lauded Manchin and fellow bill sponsor Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the Energy and Natural Resources panel’s top Republican, for the legislation.

Burd said “predictable and workable� permit review timelines lock up investment and hopefully would help accelerate the buildout of infrastructure key to bringing more gas produced in Appalachia to users worldwide.

The bill attracted positive statements from both renewable and fossil fuel energy groups, including:

• American Clean Power Association
• American Council on Renewable Energy
• Solar Energy Industries Association
• National Mining Association
• American Petroleum Institute
• National Ocean Industries Association, an offshore oil, gas and wind industry group

Study projects costly climate effects

But a study analyzing the Energy Permitting Reform Act found one section of the bill could be a costly climate catastrophe.

The bill section on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports would, according to the analysis from Symons Public Affairs, an Arlington, Virginia-based climate consulting firm:

• Lock in new greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 165 coal-fired power plants or more
• Create between $27-80 billion per year (up to $1.7 trillion through 2050) in climate damages
• Erase the climate benefits of building 50 major renewable electricity transmission lines

The bill section on LNG exports requires the secretary of Energy to:

• Approve or deny all pending and future applications to export liquefied natural gas to countries with which the U.S. doesn’t have a free trade agreement within 90 days of final environmental review
• Approve or deny all pending and future applications to extend an approved authorization to export or re-export LNG within 90 days of receiving the application
• Rely on Trump-era LNG export and life-cycle greenhouse gas studies unless and until the secretary finalizes and implements a supplemental review

Symons predicted the provisions risk forcing the Department of Energy to make permit decisions quickly while limiting the agency to what it called “outdated� Trump-era studies, preventing assessment of greenhouse gas effects against Biden administration climate commitments.

The Symons analysis didn’t comprehensively assess the bill, noting other sections could decrease and increase emissions.

Backlog means heavy costs for consumers

But as the Biden administration looks to decarbonize the nation, the regional transmission organization coordinating wholesale electricity in West Virginia and 12 other states is contending with a massive renewable project backlog.

That organization, PJM Interconnection, won’t review new requests until early 2026 as it processes its project backlog and had 3,309 active projects in its interconnection queue, according to the Berkeley lab’s analysis published in April — far more than any other regional grid operator.

Results of a PJM capacity auction for the whole grid footprint to procure power resources before a delivery year to meet electricity needs reached a record high last month, a more than 800% increase in systemwide prices relative to the prior auction for the 2024-25 delivery year, per a report prepared for the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., a Massachusetts-based energy analysis firm.

Starting June 1, 2025, capacity prices will result in a total annual cost to electric customers across the PJM region of $14.7 billion, spiking upward from the $2.2 billion in capacity costs in the 2024-25 delivery year. Synapse attributed the surge to:

• Increases in load
• Market rule changes the value of generation in the capacity market
• A reduction in capacity market supply due to plant retirements and retirement-related “must-runâ€� arrangements

PJM critics say it has been slow to implement interconnection reform, pushing up capacity costs and burdening consumers.

The National Resources Defense Council, a global environmental group, found adding just 7 gigawatts of new entry could have lowered the market clearing price as much as 63%.

Any auction-related rise in electricity cost burden would hit especially hard in West Virginia given the state’s disproportionately steep cost increase in recent years amid its nation-highest reliance on coal.

West Virginia ratepayers faced a 90% hike in average residential electricity retail price from 2005 to 2020, per EIA data. Only Michigan had a greater percentage increase.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the bill, which would also need to be approved in the House of Representatives before advancing to President Joe Biden’s desk if the full Senate advances it.