Due to what it says is rising interest in community and rooftop solar in its northern Illinois region, ComEd has updated its hosting capacity map for solar developers to help streamline the process and meet demand.
Last month, ComEd says it received 2,250 new applications to interconnect with its electric system, bringing the total applications received this year to 21,952.
The 1,976 distributed energy resource (DER) systems that ComEd completed in October represented 42 MW of DER generation capacity. There are 1,160 MW of DER interconnected to the ComEd system, including 460 MW from residential solar systems, 285 MW from community solar and 345 MW from commercial systems. This volume places a priority on providing solar developers access to current hosting capacity data, which is used to estimate the amount of DER that can be accommodated without major upgrades to the ComEd distribution system.
ComEd’s hosting capacity maps provide monthly estimates for distribution circuits at 34 kV and below that are sourced by a ComEd substation. The company also publishes hosting capacity maps for battery energy storage and for electric vehicle load, updated 20 times a year.
“Our updated hosting capacity map provides developers every month with near real-time information about solar projects in the development queue, which is key to identifying the best available location to interconnect their project to our grid,” says Mark Baranek, senior vice president of Technical Services, ComEd.
