A little bit of grid data goes a long solar power way

NREL has found that pre-applications for systems 500 kWAC and greater in Massachusetts were correlated with a 24% increase in interconnection service agreements approved although complexities make proof of causation difficult. In most places, in order to gain greater insight into the electricity traffic at any particular point on the power grid, one must request this data from the power company. Different places have different models of doing this, and though there is a bright spot in California (and an update that PV magazine will report on soon), and a few places where the data is publicly accessible for research, it mostly involves submitting an interconnection application that comes with a healthy cost.