Relevance of Generation Interconnection Procedures to Feed-in Tariffs in the United States

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) have been used to promote renewable electricity development in over 40 countries throughout the past two decades. These policies generally provide guaranteed prices for the full system output from eligible generators for a fixed time period (typically 15-20 years). Due in part to the success of FIT policies in Europe, some jurisdictions in the United States are considering implementing similar policies, and a few have already put such policies in place. This report is intended to offer some guidance to policymakers and regulators on how generator interconnection procedures may affect the implementation of FITs and how state generator interconnection procedures can be formulated to support state renewable energy objectives. This report is based on a literature review of model interconnection procedures formulated by several organizations, as well as other documents that have reviewed, commented on, and in some cases, ranked state interconnection procedures.