❤️‍🩹 Queues Are Healing: What's Happened So Far In 2026

In the first half of 2026, timelines sped up, studies moved forward, and contracts were signed

Last year, we chronicled the largest queue clean-out on record: 733 GW of proposed generation withdrew during 2025, and the national interconnection queue shrank 13%. The first half of 2026 played out differently. Withdrawals slowed to 245 GW across 1,319 projects. New applications nearly matched the withdrawn volume, adding 224 GW. The queue ended June at 1,919 GW, down 3.5% from the start of the year.

While much of the industry’s focus has been on growing crisis risk from massive demand growth driven by data centers, there are much-needed signs of improvement on the generation side. Timelines (to both withdrawal and commercial operations) are finally trending back down, and we finally have a healthy and growing pipeline of GIA-signed power plants.

Withdrawals

Withdrawals were significant. In January, 31 GW exited (11.9 GW from MISO DPP-2025, plus a long tail of utility queues in the West and Southeast). Then in April and May: 144 GW across 807 projects, driven by more MISO DPP 2025 withdrawals, PJM cleaning out their legacy serial queue, and SPP's DISIS 2024 Phase 1 decision point. Withdrawals aren’t universally bad, though. Early withdrawals followed by lower attrition at later study stages is a sign of well-executed policy.

Most of that May wave was administrative. PJM accounted for 43.1 GW of it, and every one of those 353 projects came from the RTO’s legacy serial queue: positions with queue ID prefixes like AH2, AI1, AI2, and AJ1, filed back in 2022 and 2023 under the old first-come, first-served process. PJM required all of them to reapply as new projects for Cycle 1, the first cluster of its reformed process, before the application window closed on April 27. Whatever did not transition was withdrawn. The purge shows up in our data as a bulk status flip between the April and May snapshots.

The other May driver was organic. SPP’s DISIS-2024-001 study cluster reached its Phase 1 decision point, and 126 projects totaling 28.5 GW dropped once they saw their study results. Our March report on that cluster projected heavy attrition at exactly this milestone. Even with the PJM purge included, the half-year total of 245 GW runs well behind 2025, when 283 GW exited in the first six months and another 450 GW followed in the second half.

Technology Shifts

Six months is typically a short window for the technology mix to meaningfully move. But gas is continuing its unprecedented expansion. Active gas capacity climbed from 247 GW to 305 GW, a 23% jump since the end of 2025 and a whopping 66% since the end of 2024. Solar slipped 4.7% to 682 GW. Offshore wind, already cut nearly in half last year, fell another 58% and now totals 6.9 GW nationwide.

Full report contains per-market breakdowns and exportable data

The Long Wait: Queue Timelines

Projects that reached commercial operation in the first half waited a median of 4.8 years from queue entry, down from 5.5 years for projects completing in 2025.

Withdrawal timelines are an earlier leading indicator of queue efficiency, and they keep improving. Projects that withdrew in the first half had spent a median of 21 months in the queue, down from 35 months for 2025's withdrawals and 40 months in 2024. Studies are flagging non-viable projects earlier, and developers are cutting their losses sooner. That was the design intent of FERC Order 2023. It appears to be working.

Get the full report for per-market breakdown, and Queue-to-COD metrics

Where the Activity is Happening

The non-CAISO West and ERCOT markets led the way in new additions. Looking at the map also provides a crystal-clear view of the technology trends, as well. Those orange dots are gas projects, appearing at an increasing rate. And while gas projects grow in abundance, they also tend to be the most resilient, completing at much higher rates than solar, storage, and wind projects.

Full report maps all queue activity - additions, withdrawals, CODs, and GIA executions

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The full report includes:

• 44 charts and maps, breaking out data by power market, technology, and more

• 6 fully-exportable datasets:

  • Starting projects (Everything active in the queue Jan 1 2026)

  • Added projects (Entered the queue during H1 2026)

  • GIA-signed projects (Executed GIAs during H1 2026)

  • Operational Projects (Reached commercial operations during H1 2026)

  • Withdrawn Projects (Withdrew during H1 2026)

  • Ending Projects (What was active in the queue at the end of H1 2026)