Queued Up: 2026 Edition — Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection As of the End of 2025
End-2025 US queue: ~8,200 projects, 1,312 GW generation + ~749 GW storage; total down 10%, gas up 86% to 253 GW; median request-to-operation 61 months for 2025 builds (22 in 2008); 13% of 2000-2020 requested capacity built; 2% of the 2024 queue reached operation in 2025. Supply side only; large-load queues excluded.
Read depth: the publication page in full, and the 71-slide deck text-extracted and read on the summary slides (2, 7, 11–13, 16, 22, 25) plus spot checks. The Excel data file was not opened.
What it is
Berkeley Lab's yearly count of every power plant and battery project that has asked to connect to the US high-voltage grid and is still waiting. It pulls queue data from more than 50 grid operators (7 regional markets and about 50 utility areas) covering about 98% of installed US generating capacity. It is the same method every year, which is what makes the year-on-year changes worth reading.
What it does not count: data centres. The deck says so plainly: "there are separate queues for large loads and those are not included in this report." This is the supply side of the queue only.
The numbers, as published (as of the end of 2025)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Projects waiting to connect | about 8,200 (8,244 requests on slide 13) |
| Generation waiting | 1,312 GW |
| Storage waiting | about 749 GW (total about 2,061 GW) |
| Change in total queue vs a year earlier | down 10% |
| Gas | 253 GW, up 86% |
| Solar | 773 GW, down 19% |
| Storage | 749 GW, down 16% |
| Wind | 220 GW, down 19% |
| Nuclear | 10.4 GW, up from 5.3 GW (up 96%) |
| New requests in 2025 / withdrawn in 2025 | over 600 GW / over 750 GW |
| Reached operation in 2025, out of 2,290 GW queued in 2024 | 53 GW (about 2%) |
| Median time, request to operation, projects built in 2025 | 61 months (36 months in 2015, 22 in 2008) |
| Share of capacity requested 2000–2020 that was built by end-2025 | 13% (75% withdrawn, 10% still waiting) |
| Capacity with a draft or signed connection agreement, not yet operating | 549 GW on the page (256 solar, 161 storage, 76 wind, 45 gas); the deck's slide 25 gives 536 GW (26%) — the two figures differ and neither is explained |
Largest regional queues (slide 13): the non-market West 567 GW, ERCOT 408 GW, MISO 382 GW, CAISO 191 GW, SPP 171 GW, the Southeast 153 GW, PJM 144 GW.
Why it is on this rung
It is the size of the wait, measured the same way every year. Most of the rung's earlier evidence on grid connection was one analyst's estimate or one operator's notice. This is a government lab's census.
Three things in it bear on the path from token price to task price:
- Time is the cost. A median of 61 months from asking to connect to switching on, nearly three times the 2008 figure. A power plant switching on in 2025 was, at the median, first asked for about five years earlier. Every month a built data hall waits for power is a month its chips earn nothing and still depreciate.
- Gas is the only thing growing, and fast. Gas requests rose 86% in a year while solar, wind and storage all fell. This is the queue's own evidence that new demand is being met by dispatchable plants that can run at any hour, which is what a data centre needs. Gas is also the fuel whose price then moves the power price.
- Most of the queue will never exist. Only 13% of the capacity requested in 2000–2020 was built, and only 2% of last year's queue reached operation in 2025. Treat 2,061 GW as a count of requests, not a supply forecast.
Limitations
- Requests, not plants. Most queued projects are withdrawn. The authors say so directly.
- Supply side only. Large-load (data-centre) queues are excluded, so this cannot tell you how much AI demand is waiting.
- Data through end-2025. Anything since January 2026, including the ERCOT Large Load verification pause, is not in it.
- Reforms not yet measurable. FERC Order 2023 and regional changes are being put in place; the authors say it is "too early" to measure their effect.
- Two agreement figures disagree (549 GW on the page, 536 GW on slide 25). Cite with the source named.
- No price. The report does not give the cost of power, only the queue. Connection upgrade costs are a separate LBNL series not read here.
Source: Rand et al., "Queued Up: 2026 Edition", Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, June 2026 (PDF deck). The page lists the date as 05/2026; the deck's title slide says June 2026.