The Grid Queue Has Changed Shape: Storage and Hybrids Now Drive Its Growth
By Elena Sorensen, Head of Power & Grid Infrastructure Research
The International Energy Agency (IEA) published Renewables 2026, its annual report on the sector, on 6 November. Three days later, COP31 opened in Antalya, Türkiye, for UN climate talks scheduled to end on 20 November.
The report's headline forecast is almost 4,800 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity growth from 2026 to 2031. In the World Research Institute's reading, a quieter finding matters more to anyone building, financing or buying clean power: the grid queue has changed shape.
Connection queues list the projects waiting for a network operator to study and approve their link to the grid. The IEA reports that queues for advanced-stage renewable energy and storage projects grew 60 per cent over the past year to 3,000 GW. Advanced-stage projects are those under review or at a late stage. Battery storage and hybrid projects accounted for the entire increase. Hybrids combine technologies, most often solar panels and batteries; standalone projects use a single source, such as wind or solar, without storage. Meanwhile, stricter connection rules and queue reforms in India, the United Kingdom and the United States removed almost half of early-stage standalone wind and solar projects.
In our reading, the question is shifting. It is less how much renewable capacity is proposed than which projects can secure a connection, offer flexibility and earn revenue when power is abundant. Flexibility here means the ability to shift supply or demand between hours.
The 3,000-GW Headline Hides a Change in Project Type
The headline number is large: four times the wind and solar capacity connected to the grid last year, the IEA's press release notes. The queue's make-up has changed even more.
Across the whole queue, including early-stage projects, storage is now the largest project category, ahead of standalone solar and of wind, the report finds. Queued battery storage rose by more than 900 GW in a single year, to over 1,500 GW by mid-2026. Hybrid projects passed 600 GW, up from negligible levels, and more than half combine solar and batteries. Standalone renewable projects fell by around a fifth, to 2,300 GW.
Three cautions apply. First, the 3,000 GW counts only advanced-stage projects; the figures above cover the whole queue, which is larger. Second, the data cover 20 countries, not including China, the source notes show. Around 250 GW of the whole queue's rise reflects newly available data, though the IEA says most of it is genuine growth. Third, six countries hold more than 90 per cent of queued storage, the report notes. They are Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Japan and Australia.
Why Storage and Hybrids Account for the Growth
Storage and hybrid projects grew, the IEA says, "because power system managers are seeking greater flexibility to integrate rising shares of variable renewable generation". Variable renewables are wind and solar, whose output follows the weather. More openness from operators and regulators has also made such requests easier to see.
The IEA forecasts that variable renewables will exceed 50 per cent of the power mix in 17 countries by 2031. That, it says, will require "stronger grids and interconnections, affordable storage, more dispatchable supply, and enhanced demand-side flexibility". Dispatchable supply is power that can be delivered on demand.
Hybrids also compete on cost. Solar or wind paired with batteries can already generate power for less than US$75 per megawatt-hour in many regions, the IEA estimates.
For storage, the IEA judges that grid access and connection timelines, not "investment appetite", are increasingly the key bottleneck.
Queue Reform Is Removing Speculative Capacity
Stricter connection rules largely explain the fall in standalone projects, the IEA finds. The report describes reforms that replace "first-come, first-served" processing with a readiness-based approach. Projects must meet stricter eligibility criteria, reach maturity milestones on time and post financial guarantees. It records the effects in three markets:
- United Kingdom. A gate framework prioritises projects by readiness and strategic fit. Early-stage solar projects fell by almost 170 GW.
- United States. Order No. 2023 of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission brought in cluster-based studies, which assess requests in batches, and heavier withdrawal penalties. Around 160 GW of non-viable projects left the queues.
- India. Amendments to the General Network Access rules, notably a third amendment in 2025, cut early-stage projects by almost 95 GW.
Most storage and hybrid projects, by contrast, are already under review. Their growth lifted the share of queued capacity at advanced stages from around one-half to almost two-thirds, which the IEA calls "an overall improvement in queue quality".
Our reading: a better-sorted queue tells investors more than a merely large one. But "under review" is not a connection date.
Curtailment Turns a Connection Into an Incomplete Asset
A connection does not guarantee that a project can sell all it generates. Operators can order wind and solar farms to cut output for network or system reasons, which the IEA calls technical curtailment.
Technical curtailment in key markets almost doubled in both 2024 and 2025, to almost 200 terawatt-hours (TWh), the IEA reports. It projects that curtailment could exceed 800 TWh by 2031, almost 8 per cent of wind and solar output. Its main case already assumes continued investment in networks, storage and flexibility, the report notes. Alongside that investment, reforms to power markets, project siting and system operation can limit curtailment to economically efficient levels, it adds.
Prices show a related strain. Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium each recorded more than 500 hours of negative prices in 2025, the report shows. In those hours, generators that keep producing in effect pay to do so. Spain recorded 700 such hours in the first half of 2026 alone, more than in all of 2025, according to the IEA.
Several markets are introducing non-firm connection agreements, which can speed up storage deployment, the IEA notes. Under such terms, the operator may limit a project's output when the network is congested.
In our reading, a connection right is therefore an incomplete asset. Its value depends on how many hours a project can export, and at what price.
What Power Buyers Should Ask About Firmness and Hourly Matching
Many corporate buyers sign power purchase agreements, long-term contracts to buy a project's output. The IEA warns that lower prices in sunny hours "are reducing revenues for merchant projects and corporate power purchase agreements". Merchant projects sell at market prices, without a long-term contract.
The report adds that "growing demand for firm low-emissions power from large electricity consumers, including data centres" is strengthening the case for hybrids. Firm power is supply that can be relied on when needed. Our July analysis, The Great Grid Bypass, examined large users that build their own generation to avoid the queue. This piece concerns the projects that stay in it.
Firmness has a price. In the IEA's modelling, strict monthly and peak-hour delivery requirements add US$30 per megawatt-hour to a hybrid project's levelised cost in most modelled locations. Levelised cost is the average lifetime cost per unit of electricity; the baseline is a moderate, annual-only requirement. Meeting such combined requirements generally takes solar and wind capacity of around 2.5 to 3 times demand and about four hours of batteries, the modelling shows. It also leaves roughly 30 per cent surplus generation.
Hourly matching means covering each hour of consumption with clean supply in that hour, not just balancing annual totals. An IEA case study for India models a looser target. In it, supply follows a grid region's average hourly demand profile and meets 75 per cent of demand each month. With batteries, that can cost broadly the same as constant round-the-clock supply. In our view, buyers that match hour by hour should ask three things. Which hours does the contract cover? Who carries curtailment and negative-price risk? And what does firming cost?
A Project-Quality Screen: Connection, Flexibility, Deliverability and Revenue
Reforms are improving the queue's quality, as the IEA says. The World Research Institute's view is that headline volume still overstates the capacity likely to be built and to earn. Much of the new advanced-stage capacity is still under review, and a connection does not guarantee full output or revenue. A more useful measure separates standalone generation from projects that bring storage, hybrid design, firming or flexible demand. Flexible demand is consumption that can shift to hours when power is plentiful. We suggest four tests for developers, financiers and buyers:
- Connection. Can the project survive queue reform? Ask for its queue stage, milestones met, guarantees posted and a dated connection offer.
- Flexibility. Can it shift output to the hours that pay? Ask about storage duration, hybrid design and flexible demand on site.
- Deliverability. Can it deliver when a buyer needs power? Ask for modelled curtailment, firm or non-firm connection terms and an hourly delivery profile.
- Revenue. Can it earn when power is abundant? Ask for its expected capture price (the average market price it earns for the power it sells) and its exposure to negative prices.
In our reading, the better question is which projects can connect, deliver when needed and earn.
Evidence and data cut-off: 10 November 2026. Third-party figures are as published by the cited sources. Forecasts and modelling results are the IEA's; the World Research Institute makes no forecast here. See our Research Standards.
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