Interconnection First

Interconnection First: Do Projects Live or Die at the Substation Queue? - Quarter 3 2025

Case for tracking:

In Q3 2025, solar showed resilience by pivoting toward storage, faster interconnection, and local manufacturing while still expanding despite tariff and incentive uncertainty. At RE+, industry leaders described solar as a mature, resilient sector now putting batteries at the centre of project design, with state and local markets driving much of the momentum. On-the-ground progress continued, from C&I rooftops and community projects to large solar+storage hybrids in Arizona, proving execution remains strong. Global activity was led by the GCC with mega solar+storage plants and by Asia through manufacturing scale and deployment partnerships. Politics remains a wildcard, but the narrative has shifted from if solar will grow to how fast and in what storage-linked form.

Q1 and Q2 were dominated by speculation and saw record-scale project announcements, by Q3 the focus sharpened on storage-first builds and interconnection bottlenecks, making solar look less like an emerging sector and more like core energy infrastructure.

Volume of Mentions from Energy Considered’s Key Opinion Leaders:

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