Market Signal: 750GW stuck behind utility engineering
Roughly 750GW of storage waits for grid connections, with median interconnection waits at five years.
Berkeley Lab puts roughly 750GW of energy storage in line for grid connections, with the median wait at five years in 2025, up from a year and a half in 2015. PG&E reports a 300% increase in interconnection workload, and Southern California Edison has 13GW delayed by unfinished upgrades.
The signal Announced capacity and energized capacity are separated by utility engineering capacity, not developer appetite. Wood Mackenzie puts cost and limited manpower at the core of it.
Hiring Demand is moving to the utility and EPC side. Substation Engineers, Protection and Controls Engineers, and Interconnection Project Managers clear the backlog. On the developer side it is Interconnection Managers and Procurement Leads who lock in long-lead equipment.