50 More NYISO Projects, 13 Fewer at SPP: 4 Grid Queues

Four public grid queues listed 6,729 projects on October 19, 2026, up from 6,692 on August 6, 2026, a net change of +37. That net is mostly one operator: NYISO added 50 listed projects while SPP lost 13, and CAISO and ISO-NE did not move.

An interconnection queue is the list of power projects that have asked a grid operator for permission to connect. A queue position is a request to connect, not a built, approved, or financed project, and many queued projects never reach construction. This is a short-window census of listings. Scope: Like-for-like change in four public grid-operator queues (CAISO, ISO-NE, NYISO, SPP) between August 6 and October 19, 2026.

The four queues list 6,729 projects, up from 6,692.

The Net Across the Four Queues

The four covered queues netted +37 listed projects between the two sealed snapshots, moving from 6,692 to 6,729. Their listed capacity moved from 1,223,574 MW to 1,231,906 MW, a change of +8,332 MW. These are verbatim endpoints and their exact difference, measured over a 74-day window.

Four-queue listed projects: 6,692 on August 6, 2026, and 6,729 on October 19, 2026, a change of +37.

The difference nets everything that entered the listings against everything that left them. Because each endpoint is a total, the change does not reveal how many projects arrived or how many were removed. For readers looking up interconnection queue trends, this is a short-window movement, not a trend line.

Operator by Operator: Project Counts

Only NYISO grew and only SPP shrank. NYISO's net gain of 50 is the largest movement in the table, and SPP's net loss of 13 is the only decline. CAISO and ISO-NE report identical totals on both dates, so the four-queue figure rests entirely on the NYISO and SPP movements.

NYISO added 50 listed projects; SPP lost 13.

Capacity Moved in Two Queues

Capacity follows the same two-operator pattern. NYISO's listed capacity rose by 10,489 MW, while SPP's fell by 2,157 MW. The NYISO change is larger than the four-queue net, so SPP's decline offsets part of it.

NYISO's +10,489 MW exceeds the four-queue net of +8,332 MW, offset in part by SPP's -2,157 MW.

The Two Flat Queues Need a Second Look

CAISO and ISO-NE report identical counts and identical megawatts on both dates (see the CAISO queue report for that operator's own listing): 2,278 projects and 492,197 MW for CAISO, and 1,747 projects and 193,097 MW for ISO-NE. Matching to the megawatt across 74 days could mean no listing changed. It could also mean a feed did not refresh, or that additions and removals offset inside the operator's list. The sealed snapshots cannot separate these explanations.

CAISO publishes its queue as a public spreadsheet at https://www.caiso.com/PublishedDocuments/PublicQueueReport.xlsx, which is the place to start that check before quoting a flat result as a finding.

CAISO and ISO-NE project counts: 2,278 and 1,747, unchanged.

Why Listed Counts Move

A listed count can change for reasons that one pair of snapshots cannot separate. New interconnection requests add entries. Developers withdraw requests when study results, equipment costs, or site and offtake plans change. Operators re-label or re-date entries, and a feed can drop or restore records during maintenance. Each of these moves the same total, so the direction of a net change says little about its cause. Treat the tables as a record of what each listing showed on two dates, not as a ledger of why projects came or went.

The four operators also publish on their own schedules and in their own formats. This comparison maps each one to a project count and a megawatt figure, which makes the rows comparable as published counts. It does not make them equivalent processes. A total of 1,637 at NYISO and a total of 1,030 at SPP describe two different listings under two sets of rules, so neither figure is a measure of relative activity.

Withheld Sources

ERCOT and MISO are withheld from both endpoints, so they appear in no total, difference, or table here. The four-queue figures are therefore not a national count of queued projects. The exclusion is a coverage decision for this comparison, not a market event, and neither absence should be read as a change in either market.

What a Net Listing Change Cannot Show

A net listing change is the difference between two totals. It cannot say how many projects were added, how many withdrew, which were approved, which were completed, or which were built. A net gain at NYISO can hide many new listings offset by removals, and a net loss at SPP can hide new listings that were outweighed by removals.

Feed rules add another layer. Some operators drop withdrawn projects from their public feeds entirely, so a falling count can reflect a feed change rather than a developer's decision. The two snapshots do not show which records changed.

Finally, a 74-day window is too short to call a trend. A single batch of new requests could account for the NYISO movement, and a later snapshot could reverse it.

The sealed counts show direction in a 74-day window only.

When to Re-Check Each Source

The dated tables give a practical re-check rule. Re-check any operator whose count or megawatts moved between the two snapshots before reusing its figure, because its listing has changed and the old number may be stale. Treat a flat operator as a verification task rather than a settled fact, since an unchanged total may reflect a feed that did not update. Attach the 74-day window to every quoted figure, so a short movement is not carried forward as a trend.

For a team with limited time, the order is simple. NYISO and SPP come first, because both their counts and their megawatts moved. CAISO and ISO-NE come next, to confirm the flat results against each operator's own list. That order is a review sequence, not a forecast of which queue will move next.

Methodology

Source attribution: US Tech Automations Research derived comparison (grid-2026-08-06 sha 6191d7b2756a, grid-2026-10-19 sha 5a1522ef1a7c).

Scope: Like-for-like change in four public grid-operator queues (CAISO, ISO-NE, NYISO, SPP) between August 6 and October 19, 2026.

Honesty statement: Every figure is a verbatim count or an exact difference of two verbatim counts from the same sources. A net change in listed or captured records is not a count of new businesses, projects approved, or projects built. This is a short window, not a long-run trend. Nothing is estimated or modeled.

Each delta is the exact subtraction of two sealed endpoint counts, and each capacity delta is the same subtraction on MW totals, so nothing is estimated or modeled. Counts are taken as each operator publishes them. No status, fuel, or withdrawal split enters this comparison. A queue position is a request to connect, not a built, approved, or financed project. ERCOT and MISO are withheld from both endpoints.

1. Collect. Pull each covered operator's public queue listing for the August 6, 2026 and October 19, 2026 snapshots.

2. Normalize. Map each listing to one project count and one capacity figure in MW, dropping ERCOT and MISO from both endpoints.

3. Difference. Subtract each August endpoint from its October endpoint, per operator and for the four-queue total.

4. Seal. Hash both source snapshots and the derived comparison so every figure can be re-checked against its endpoints.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does a +37 net change mean 37 new projects joined these queues?
A: No. The +37 is the difference between two listed totals, 6,692 and 6,729. It nets additions against removals, so the same figure could come from many new listings and many removals, or from few of either. The sealed snapshots do not split it.

Q: Why does the comparison leave out ERCOT and MISO?
A: Both are withheld from both endpoints, so every total and difference uses the same four operators. That is a coverage decision for this comparison. The four-queue totals should not be quoted as a national count of queued projects.

Q: What does an exact flat result for CAISO and ISO-NE mean?
A: It means the two snapshots match on count and megawatts. That may mean nothing changed, or that a feed did not refresh, or that offsetting changes were hidden. Check the operator's own listing before treating the flat result as a finding.

Q: How is a sealed comparison different from reading today's queue list?
A: A live list shows only the current state. A sealed comparison fixes two dated snapshots and computes the difference between them, so the result can be re-checked later. It reports the net movement only and does not explain what the individual changes were.

Q: How should a grid or solar team act on a short-window change like this?
A: Use the dated tables to set re-check timing. An operator that moved, such as NYISO or SPP here, earns a sooner look at its listing. A flat operator earns a verification pass first. No row here is evidence that any listed project will be built.

Put Queue Monitoring to Work

Three readers can use this window directly. An interconnection analyst at a storage developer can re-check NYISO's listing on a fixed schedule and, when its count moves, open the queue to see which projects entered and whether their megawatts moved with them. That turns a net figure into a short list of records to read.

A solar EPC procurement lead can use the operator tables as a re-check calendar, reviewing movers before flat operators each cycle, and can tie queue movement to the timing of equipment quotes rather than to a delivery forecast. A grid-policy researcher can keep the four-operator denominator on every quote, so 6,729 is never presented as a national total.

US Tech Automations' agentic workflows can run the recurring part: check each operator's listing on a schedule, flag any change in count or megawatts, and route each change to the analyst who owns that source. See how that monitoring is set up on the agentic workflows platform.

Source: US Tech Automations Research — derived comparison of sealed grid-queue snapshots grid-2026-08-06 (sha 6191d7b2756a) and grid-2026-10-19 (sha 5a1522ef1a7c), August 6, 2026 – October 19, 2026.