On July 8, Piq Energy, Enera Power Group, Firma Power, GridUnity, and Scout Clean Energy filled a room at 9Zero San Francisco, with hundreds more joining on Zoom, to work through one question: what does it take to connect to the grid now that interconnection has become the biggest bottleneck and the rules are changing faster than most teams can adapt?
A few points came up again and again across both sessions. The headroom the grid used to run on has largely disappeared, models now set the standard developers are held to, real-time and physics-based compliance is becoming the expectation, and every market from ERCOT to CAISO is working against the same clock. Here's the recap.
Scroll the photos, view the clips, review the discussion, or read below for key takeaways.
Presented By
Piq Energy helps developers connect to the grid faster by bringing grid studies in-house, finding better sites, and keeping control of their most important decisions.
Space provided by 9Zero SF.
First, meet our experts:
Tom Nudell, Co-Founder & CEO @ Piq Energy
John Cheney, Founder & CEO @ Enera Power Group
Scott Burger, Co-Founder @ Firma Power
Zach Alter, Policy & Market Analysis @ GridUnity
Komal Shetye, Interconnection Team @ Scout Clean Energy
Moderated by @Adam Shaw, CMO — Integ Consulting, Founder — Grid Innovation Hub
Fireside: ERCOT's New Interconnection Playbook
Tom Nudell (Piq Energy) and John Cheney (Enera Power Group) opened the forum with a candid look at how interconnection in ERCOT has changed, and what it means for developers who are not tracking it closely.
Between them they bring a PhD and MIT postdoc in computational power systems, seven years commercializing grid-enhancing technology at Smart Wires, and decades of solar development, including MMA Renewable Ventures and SPower's 1.3 GW build-out and 150 interconnections, plus a new effort in US solar manufacturing. Highlights:
The easy days are over. ERCOT's old "connect and manage" approach let developers land an interconnection agreement in six to eighteen months with a model that was accepted and rarely audited. That period has ended.
The old cushion is gone. Overbuilt headroom from large thermal generators used to absorb mistakes. Rising inverter-based resources and data center load have used it up.
Models are now the benchmark. Your model governs how your plant is allowed to behave, and missing it can mean fines or removal from the queue. As John put it, "You get a ticket, and you didn't even know where you were supposed to park."
Stability is where the pressure lands. IEEE 2800 and new ride-through requirements mean a plant's real-time behavior has to match its model, and proving that takes physics-based measurement.
Planning and operations have to line up. These have long run on separate systems, and now they need to agree, because you cannot show the plan matches the behavior unless you measure it.
Large loads are bringing their own power. AI data centers and other big loads are increasingly paired with dedicated generation, location by location.
Panel: Solving the Bottleneck Across the Grid
All five speakers joined for the panel: Tom Nudell (Piq Energy), John Cheney (Enera Power Group), Scott Burger (Firma Power), Zach Alter (GridUnity), and Komal Shetye (Scout Clean Energy). Together they took the ERCOT lessons national, comparing how the same pressures are showing up across CAISO, PJM, and the rest of the country.
No market is running smoothly. Across ERCOT, CAISO, and PJM, interconnection is slow, and timelines that used to be quoted at seven years are now closer to eight or nine.
ERCOT and CAISO each carry trade-offs. ERCOT is not FERC-jurisdictional, so it skipped Order 2023's cluster reform and still runs a serial process, which makes entry easier but leaves developers exposed to curtailment and congestion risk under connect and manage. CAISO took in about 400 GW in its last cluster, closed the queue, and is reopening it with 100% site control and commercial-interest requirements.
Pairing load and generation is gaining ground. Gov. Abbott has said new data centers in Texas must bring their own power, part of a broader push to add generation alongside large loads.
The timing of data is part of the congestion. Much of the queue backlog comes from not having the right information at the right stage, and better tools can surface available capacity earlier and reduce speculative filings.
Getting more from the existing grid matters. The recent FERC show-cause order and state efforts, such as bills in Virginia, are pushing grid-enhancing technologies and more use of current infrastructure.
Faster studies help regardless of policy. Whatever the rules settle on, most delays trace back to engineering studies, and speeding those up is where technology can do the most.
Komal Shetye on the ERCOT vs. CAISO trade-off
Zach Alter on the queue being a timing-of-data problem
The Energy Tech Mixer
We closed the evening with Japanese Soda and Sushi, catered bites, a few unusual signature drinks, and an hour of networking across utilities, IPPs, renewable operators, startups, and system integrators.
Thank you
Thanks to our Presenting Partner Piq Energy, our Space Partner 9Zero SF, our speakers Tom, John, Scott, Zach, and Komal, and everyone who joined us in person and on Zoom.
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