THE GND IS TOO CAUTIOUS:

A new study published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Electricity Markets and Policy group (EMP) shows that the queue of new wind and solar capacity in the United States scheduled for connection to the grid has reached record levels, alongside the new capacity of battery storage projects.

"We find that the total capacity active in the queues is growing year-over-year, with over 750 GW of generation and an estimated 200 GW of storage capacity as of the end of 2020", the researchers found. "Solar (462 GW) accounts for a large - and growing - share of generator capacity in the queues. Substantial wind (209 GW) capacity is also in development, 29% of which is for offshore projects (61 GW). In total, about 680 GW of zero-carbon capacity is currently seeking transmission access, as is 74 GW of natural gas capacity".

The EMP research also finds that 'hybrid' projects - solar combined with storage - are rising as a share of generation capacity due to be connected to the grid.

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