Bottleneck record, bottleneck_assessment_v1
Electricity transmission and interconnection
Whether the US grid can connect and deliver the generation being built. Pressure from demand growth, capacity growth and retail price; planned retirements are shown as an observed context figure (one vintage, no history to rank) and the interconnection queue has no registered source. Response is the EIA-860M capacity pipeline against trailing additions, with the grid investment capex pulse alongside.
Reading
In plain words
Pressure is 75 on a 0 to 100 scale (the weighted 75th percentile of its components' own histories) with 3 of 6 components available, 55 percent of the weight, as of 2026-05. Status: constrained. The response signal is 0.94, meaning the 24-month pipeline roughly matches recent additions. Adding capacity takes 7 to 15 years by the cited source, so today's response is read against that horizon.
rules fired: pressure 75.29 >= 75
Is the problem being solved?
Pressure and response
- pressure0 to 100, left
- response ratioratio, right
75
0 to 100, coverage 55%, 3 of 6 components, as of 2026-05
0.94
24-month weighted pipeline / trailing additions, threshold 1, as of 2026-07-01
Pressure components
Percentiles, weights and what is missing
| Component | Weight | Series and transform | Percentile | Raw | Period | History | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Demand growth 12-month percent change of US net generation (EIA ELETPUS) | 0.2 | us-electricity-net-generation USA pct_change_12 | 65.26 | 3.0975 | 2026-05-01 | 629 | present obs 245394, 245395, 245396 ... |
Capacity growth gap 12-month percent change of US net summer capacity (EIA ELGBPUS); read directly, higher capacity growth ranks higher because the retirements component carries the loss side | 0.2 | us-electric-net-summer-capacity USA pct_change_12 | 87.09 | 4.7032 | 2026-05-01 | 244 | present obs 241165, 241166, 241167 ... |
Retail price pressure 12-month percent change of the average retail electricity price (EIA ESTCUUS) | 0.15 | us-electricity-retail-price USA pct_change_12 | 72.91 | 5.3313 | 2026-05-01 | 515 | present obs 245921, 245922, 245923 ... |
Planned retirements Capacity scheduled to retire in the next 24 months relative to its own history. | 0.2 | no registered series | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing us-planned-generation-retirements is a schedule keyed by retirement month from the latest EIA-860M file (one vintage), so it has no history to rank; the next-24-month total is shown as context candidates: EIA-860M file history (one next-24-month total per file month) |
Interconnection queue Capacity waiting in interconnection queues and its wait time. | 0.15 | no registered series | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing no interconnection queue series is registered candidates: LBNL Queued Up (annual); ISO/RTO queue reports |
Transformer lead time Delivery lead time for large power transformers. | 0.1 | no registered series | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing no transformer lead-time series is registered candidates: DOE Large Power Transformer Resilience Report (2024); NIAC transformer report (2024) |
--
MW, 0 period(s) from --, us-planned-generation-retirements
nameplate MW of operating generators with a reported retirement month in the 24 months after the current month (EIA-860M); observed, not scored (no observations of us-planned-generation-retirements (USA))
Response detail
What the response signal rests on
- Metric
- us-capacity-response-electricity USA, observation 409127
- 24-month pipeline, weighted
- 109,333.015 MW
- Trailing 24 months of additions
- 116,211.3 MW
- Computed from
- v1.0/860M-2026-07+additions-2026-07
- Detail
- /capacity
Alongside, not in the score: Grid Investment Pulse capex growth 35.2% as of 2025-12-31 (9 of 10 members, row 2).
Downstream
Systems that depend on it
| Entity | Type | Hops | Centrality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity system | infrastructure_system | 1 | 4.6 |
| Data center | facility | 1 | 1.75 |
| Semiconductor fabrication plant | facility | 2 | 3.75 |
| AI compute | technology | 2 | 0.75 |
| Economic output | entity | 2 | 0.5 |
| Human health and longevity | entity | 2 | 0 |
| High bandwidth memory | product | 3 | 2.475 |
| AI accelerator | product | 3 | 1.75 |
Substitutes
Named on the dependency edges
No substitute is named on any stored edge.
Expansion lead time
84 to 180 months
New high-voltage transmission line, planning to energisation
Interstate transmission projects from initiation through permitting and construction.
U.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Office, National Transmission Needs Study (2023)
“New transmission takes on average around 10 years to complete, with some projects requiring 15 years or more; permits alone average more than four years.”
checked 2026-09-07
Evidence
Every number, by id
- metricDemand growth: us-electricity-net-generation (USA)pct_change_12, rank 65.26 over 629 periods, period 2026-05-01, observation ids 245391, 245392, 245393, 245394, 245395, 245396 ...
- metricCapacity growth gap: us-electric-net-summer-capacity (USA)pct_change_12, rank 87.09 over 244 periods, period 2026-05-01, observation ids 241162, 241163, 241164, 241165, 241166, 241167 ...
- metricRetail price pressure: us-electricity-retail-price (USA)pct_change_12, rank 72.91 over 515 periods, period 2026-05-01, observation ids 245918, 245919, 245920, 245921, 245922, 245923 ...
- observationcapacity response observation 409127 (us-capacity-response-electricity)v1.0/860M-2026-07+additions-2026-07
- pulsesupporting: corporate_pulses row 2 (grid_investment)recorded alongside the score, not part of it
- entitygraph entity Transmission and distribution grid
- edgeElectricity system depends on Transmission and distribution grid (requires_input, established_identity_or_engineering_relation, weight 1)
- edgeData center depends on Transmission and distribution grid (requires_input, established_identity_or_engineering_relation, weight 1)
- documentU.S. Department of Energy, Grid Deployment Office, National Transmission Needs Study (2023)lead time 84 to 180 months: New transmission takes on average around 10 years to complete, with some projects requiring 15 years or more; permits alone average more than four years.
Bottleneck and Response monitor, model bottleneck_assessment_v1, thresholds bottleneck_thresholds_v1
A record shows two signals and never combines them.
Pressure (modeled): each available component is transformed (12-month percent change, year-over-year growth with the sign reversed for supply, level for shares and lead times), then replaced by its percentile rank (0 to 100) within its own stored history up to that period, ties counted half, after a minimum history. The score is the weighted mean of those ranks over the components present, renormalised. Coverage is the share of declared weight that has data; components without a registered source are declared with their weight, their role and candidate sources, and count against coverage. Weights are a modelling choice and are listed on every record.
Response: the capacity response ratio where a capacity pipeline exists (US electricity: the stage-weighted 24-month EIA-860M pipeline over the trailing 24 months of additions, modeled), otherwise the capital expenditure pulse of the tagged company group (matched-sample trailing-four-quarter capex growth from stored 10-K and 10-Q facts, derived), otherwise null with the reason.
Status comes only from these thresholds:
- insufficient data: coverage below 0.5, or no pressure score. No label is guessed.
- below watch: pressure below 60.
- watch: pressure at or above 60 and below 75.
- constrained: pressure at or above 75.
- constrained, response underway: constrained and the response signal clears its threshold (capacity response at or above 1.0, or capex pulse above 10 percent).
Lead time is recommended-class metadata from a small sourced table (src/data/lead-times.ts) and is stored with its citation. Substitutes and downstream systems come from the curated knowledge graph (edges where the record's entity is the dependency; entities within three hops that depend on it, with centrality_v1). Every number on a record traces to stored observation ids, pulse row ids or edge ids in the row's JSON.
History
Assessments stored
| As of | Pressure | Coverage | Response | Status | Computed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-01 | 75 | 55% | 0.94 | constrained | 2026-09-07 |