The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (Joint Office) have launched a new funding program to pilot innovative solutions for managing renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) charging interconnection and energization queues. The Innovative Queue Management Solutions (iQMS) for Clean Energy Interconnection and Energization program, created through a partnership intermediary agreement with ENERGYWERX, will award $11.2 million across 25 distribution utilities for innovative approaches that can accelerate timelines for clean energy and EV charging projects.
This collaboration with DOE’s Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X) program aims to support distribution utilities currently lacking tools to manage large queues of interconnection requests for mid-scale clean energy and electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) or system projects seeking to connect to the grid without delays or high costs.
The iQMS program is designed to encourage collaboration between distribution utility departments like research, planning, information technology, and operations to improve data quality and interoperability. By integrating and expanding the capabilities of internal IT systems, the program will help distribution utilities test, implement, validate, and share new queue management approaches. This will eliminate unnecessary work, reduce errors, increase productivity, and deliver reliable interconnection and service load request services to customers, ultimately reducing costs to consumers.
The iQMS program provides funding in two tracks:
Track 1: Generator Interconnection – Distribution-level queue management solutions for generator interconnection of solar photovoltaics (PV), wind, storage, small hydropower, and other clean energy technologies.
- Total funding: $9.2 million
Track 2: Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) Load Request – Distribution-level queue management solutions for EVSE load requests and energization queues.
- Total funding: $2 million
Learn more at the info webinar on August 29 from 3–4 p.m. ET and office hours on September 19 from 3–4 p.m. ET. Applications are due October 16, 2024.
