ISO New England first cluster study lists projects and identified upgrades

ISO New England replaced its serial interconnection queue with a cluster study framework under its Order No. 2023 compliance filing. The region's queue is modest by comparison with PJM or MISO, which does not make the process less binding.

The constraint in New England is geographic. Offshore and northern resources connect at a limited number of viable points, and the upgrades required to move energy south and west are correspondingly concentrated. A cluster in that setting produces upgrade sets that are large relative to the projects sharing them.

Cost allocation in a small cluster is therefore volatile. The withdrawal of a single large position can move remaining projects materially, in either direction.

For an investor, the diligence question is the composition of the cluster rather than the merits of the individual project. For a state policymaker, the same arithmetic explains why procurement design and interconnection design cannot be considered separately.

What to watch: whether the first cluster completes without a restudy triggered by withdrawal.