The interconnection queue is a study line, not a power contract
The interconnection queue for a data center is a request to be studied, not a power contract.
An interconnection agreement is the contract: megawatts, point of interconnection, upgrades, deposits, CIAC, and a schedule.
A will-serve letter is a utility comfort letter, usually not firm.
Queued capacity is not powered land.
A will-serve letter is not an interconnection agreement.
Interconnection queue (definition, large-load). The line of requests asking a utility or grid operator to study offtake at a point of interconnection.
A queue position is a study request.
An interconnection agreement (IA) is the contract.
A will-serve letter is not either of those.
Most queue filings never become campuses. The definition of the power claim lives on the powered-land page: queued is not powered land.
Is a will-serve letter the same as an interconnection agreement?
No. A will-serve letter is a utility comfort letter. An interconnection agreement is the contract.
Will-serve letters also exist for water and sewer. This page is electric large-load for data centers.
Data center interconnection queue
A data center interconnection queue is the load line: offtake at a substation, not injection from a plant.
| Instrument | What it is | What people sell it as | What a buyer underwrites |
|---|---|---|---|
| Queue filing | A request to be studied, plus a deposit. | Powered land. | Assignability, deposits, withdrawal risk. |
| Study results | This cycle's answer. | A schedule you can take to FID. | Remaining clock, upgrade stack, restudy risk. |
| Will-serve / LOA | A utility comfort letter. | An IA. | Almost nothing. Comfort is not firm service. |
| IA / firm service | The contract. | The flyer. | MW, POI, CIAC, deposits, in-service window. |
Queued capacity is not powered land. A will-serve letter is not an interconnection agreement. Do not let a listing collapse them.
Generation queue versus large-load queue
PJM.org and MISO will keep the generic “interconnection queue” query. Most of that public queue is generation.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Queued Up 2026 edition counts generation and storage requests. It says, in the notes, that it does not include load interconnection requests.
In most of the United States the RTO does not interconnect the load. The transmission owner does. Generator interconnection is FERC-jurisdictional and RTO-run. Large-load offtake is often a utility process with a different portal, a different deposit, and a different agreement.
| Compare | Generation queue | Large-load / data-center offtake |
|---|---|---|
| What it studies | Injection from a plant. | Offtake at a substation. |
| Who usually runs it | The RTO / ISO. | Often the transmission owner. ERCOT runs a separate large-load process. |
| Public portal | PJM service requests, MISO GI Queue, ERCOT GIS. | ERCOT large-load tracking. Utility delivery-point / load-connection studies. |
| LBNL Queued Up | This. | Explicitly not this. |
| A data-center campus | Not this line. | This line. |
Do not treat a PJM or MISO generation-queue screenshot as the data-center process.
How a filing becomes an interconnection agreement
The steps are the same idea in every ISO. The names and clocks are not.
- Pre-application or screening.
- Application plus deposit.
- Studies (feasibility, system impact, facilities; in ERCOT, a batch).
- Interconnection agreement or firm-service agreement.
- Upgrades, often paid as CIAC (contribution in aid of construction).
- Energization.
A load study answers whether the wires can take the offtake. It does not, by itself, answer whether there are megawatts to sell you (RMI, 2026). That is why an executed IA is Stage 3 and a queue receipt is Stage 1.
Utilities quoting four to ten years for interconnection is a schedule risk, not a land value. Source: Google / Marsden Hanna, January 2026, at the American Enterprise Institute. One utility told Google it would take 12 years just to study the request. When that clock is used as a land value, read how much data centers pay for land. Acreage is how much land data centers need.
ERCOT, PJM, and MISO
These ranges move. Name the year.
| ISO | What the public queue is | What a data-center load uses |
|---|---|---|
| ERCOT | GIS generation report: solar, wind, gas, battery. | A separate large-load process. Batch Zero studies loads 75 MW and above as a group. |
| PJM | Serial / cluster generation interconnection. | Often the transmission owner (for example Dominion's delivery-point process), not that serial list. |
| MISO | GI Queue: generation. | A dedicated large-load study process, announced July 2026, outside that GI Queue. |
ERCOT told the Texas Senate in July 2026 it was tracking about 474 GW of large-load interconnection requests, about 90 percent data centers (ERCOT Senate deck). That is several times ERCOT’s all-time peak demand. The same deck put about 205 GW as preliminarily eligible for Batch Zero. Most queue filings never become campuses.
Link out to the operator. Do not scrape a generation report as offtake.
FERC issued show-cause orders to the six FERC-jurisdictional RTOs and ISOs in June 2026 because several tariffs still lacked a clear large-load study process. Quoted waits of four to ten years are Hanna’s, not a PJM tariff number.
Until MISO’s dedicated process exists, a MISO screenshot of solar and storage is not your campus.
Behind-the-meter as an alternate path
Behind-the-meter generation is an alternate path to Stage 3, not a synonym for a queue skip.
The labels live on the powered-land page: BTM permitted versus BTM claimed. queued is not powered land. Do not recut that table here.
A rendering of turbines is claimed. Air permit, fuel or pipeline, and equipment slots are permitted. Google’s preference, stated by Hanna in the same January 2026 remarks, is still grid-connected load served by grid-connected resources. Colocation is the workaround when the study clock will not move.
Can you assign a queue position
No, unless the tariff and the application say yes.
A change of applicant often resets the study. Many large-load filings are named to a person or an SPV and are not a freely transferable asset. If the position is not assignable, you are not selling a power path. You are selling dirt with a story that dies when the name on the application changes.
FERC’s June 2026 large-load orders also target speculative duplicate requests: developers shopping the same load with several utilities. That is another reason a queue ID on a flyer is not a contract.
Read the assignability clause before you price Stage 1 as Stage 3. A room holds that clause. It does not transfer the position. If you have an option and a queue filing, see who buys an option + queue.
What sits in the folder at Stage 1 versus Stage 3
The site readiness checklist is the folder. This table is which queue paper sits in it. Do not paste the checklist.
| Compare | Stage 1 Filed | Stage 3 Power contracted |
|---|---|---|
| Queue paper | Large-load or interconnection application plus deposits (P3). | Executed IA or firm service (P6), or permitted BTM (P8). |
| Will-serve / LOA | May sit here (P5). | Still not Stage 3. |
| Assignability | Read the clause. | The IA names the customer. |
| Who shows up | Assembler. Specialist developer at a discount. | Infra PE, neocloud, hyperscaler diligence. |
P5 is the will-serve slot. It is not P6. Site control, CUP, ALTA, Phase I ESA, fiber, and water still have to be in the room. That list lives on the checklist.
If you have a folder, put the files in a room before you price the dirt.
FAQ
What is an interconnection queue?
For a data-center load, the interconnection queue is the line of requests to be studied for offtake at a substation.
It is not a power contract.
It is not the generation queue PJM and MISO publish for plants.
Is a will-serve letter the same as an interconnection agreement?
No. A will-serve letter is a utility comfort letter. An interconnection agreement is the contract.
The contract names megawatts, point of interconnection, upgrades, deposits, CIAC, and a schedule.
Buyers fund the second. The letter can sit in a Stage 1 folder. It does not make the site Stage 3.
Will-serve letters also exist for water and sewer. This page is electric large-load for data centers.
Can I sell or assign a queue position?
Only if the utility tariff and the application say you can.
Many large-load filings are not assignable, or they reset the study if the applicant changes.
Read the clause before you price Stage 1 as if it were Stage 3.
What is behind-the-meter generation for a data center?
Generation on the customer's side of the meter, used to serve the hall without waiting out a full grid offtake study.
It is Stage 3 only when it is permitted: air permit, fuel or pipeline, and equipment slots.
A slide of turbines is claimed BTM, not powered land.
The permitted BTM versus claimed BTM test lives on the powered-land page.
Is the PJM interconnection queue the data-center process?
Usually not.
PJM's public queue is mostly generation: plants asking to inject.
A data-center campus is offtake, often studied by the transmission owner.
Do not underwrite a Northern Virginia site off a generation-queue screenshot.
How long does large-load interconnection take?
It depends on the ISO and the year, and the clocks move.
Google's Marsden Hanna said in January 2026 that utilities in many markets quote four to ten years to interconnect, and that one utility quoted 12 years just to study the request.
That is a schedule risk, not a land value.
What is CIAC in a data center interconnection agreement?
Contribution in aid of construction: the customer-paid stack of interconnection facilities and, often, network upgrades named in the IA.
A will-serve letter does not name it.
A queue receipt does not cap it.
Does a queue position mean the land is powered?
No.
A load application in an interconnection queue is a request to be studied.
Powered land is existing metered load, a confirmed expansion, an executed IA, or permitted BTM.
Most queue filings never become campuses.
Sources
- ERCOT, Senate Committee on Business & Commerce deck, 29 July 2026.
- Google / Marsden Hanna, remarks on interconnection timelines at the American Enterprise Institute, January 2026.
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Queued Up 2026 edition (generation and storage only).
- RMI, Understanding Large Load Interconnection, 2026.
- FERC, large-load interconnection show-cause orders to six RTO/ISOs, 18 June 2026.
- MISO dedicated large-load study process, reported by RTO Insider, 20 July 2026.
- ERCOT / PUCT, Batch Zero large-load process (loads 75 MW and above), June 2026.
- PJM, serial service request status (generation queue).
- MISO, Generator Interconnection Queue.
If the files are already in a folder, grade which row they are on. Cashpian is a gated room for that packet. It is not a listing portal. It does not sell land or transfer queue positions.