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North American Grid Struggles to Absorb Solar Capacity Additions, Wood Mackenzie Says

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Deployment of solar power generation in North America is running up against inadequate transmission infrastructure, a bottleneck that has plagued other countries embracing the clean energy source, Wood Mackenzie said on Thursday.

This was a key conclusion of the 19th edition of its yearly Solar & Energy Storage Summit which assembled 400 executives and energy thought leaders discussing challenges and opportunities facing the burgeoning technology.

WoodMac said transmission was the single biggest challenge for project deployment with ageing grids strained by new data center demand and the integration of intermittent renewables alongside coal and gas plant retirement.

While interconnection reform work has led to progress, this has displaced but not eliminated development bottlenecks, it said.

Data from the US Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) says that 70 gigawatts of interconnection agreements have yet to move to construction, with 40 GW delayed over permitting and finance.

Wood Mackenzie said that faster expansion of transmission infrastructure and coordinated regional planning with more certainty over long-term construction plans are necessary to prevent a loss of confidence among renewables developers.

In keeping with the theme of economic viability, Wood Mackenzie said the positive impact of automation was a discussion point, specifically the use of robots for solar farm installation work.

It concluded that "robotics could reshape solar project economics," with a number of robot models now reaching commercial deployment.

Wood Mackenzie said there were some risks to adopting the unproven technology that has seen limited use so far and its uptake is likely to be limited in the next few years.

The technology's benefits have arisen due to increasing labour hourly rates as well as restrictions on labour deployment during increasingly frequent heatwaves.

"The most repetitive and strenuous tasks will be replaced first, but the maximum value will come when equipment and processes are redesigned around AI-driven autonomous robotics," Wood Mackenzie concluded.

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