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CAISO · California

Twenty-two years at one switchyard: gas built, then storage queued.

Otay Mesa Switchyard 230 kV

Fourteen requests since 1999. Every gas project that reached operation was filed before 2018; every request since 2020 is storage, and none has been built.

Built
6
Withdrawn
5
Still in queue
3

The queue record

Every interconnection request the dataset records at this point of interconnection, in filing order.

Interconnection requests recorded at this point of interconnection, with request date, capacity and outcome.
RequestedProjectTechnologyCapacityOutcome
1999-11-01OTAY MESA GENERATING PROJECTGas550 MWBuilt2009-10-02 · 9.9 yrs
2003-01-07OTAY MESAGas65 MWBuilt2009-10-02 · 6.7 yrs
2010-02-01PIO PICO ENERGY CENTERGas308 MWBuilt2016-11-03 · 6.8 yrs
2014-04-30OTAY MESA ENERGY CENTER AGPGas35 MWWithdrawn2015-03-24
2014-04-30PIO PICO CAPACITY INCREASE (FKA PIO PICO ENERGY CENTER 2)Gas10 MWBuilt2016-12-14 · 2.6 yrs
2015-04-30GATEWAY ENERGY STORAGEBattery250 MWBuilt2025-04-22 · 10.0 yrs
2015-04-30MARIA PICO ENERGY STORAGE CENTERBattery25 MWWithdrawn2015-07-08
2015-04-30PIO PICO UNIT 4Gas110 MWWithdrawn2015-07-08
2017-02-06PIO PICO PLUSGas18 MWBuilt2017-10-17 · 0.7 yrs
2020-04-15EAST FIELD ENERGY STORAGEBattery312.96 MWStill in queue
2021-04-15CHARGER STORAGEBattery615.756 MWWithdrawn2022-12-29
2021-04-15CARGO STORAGEBattery312.96 MWStill in queue
2021-04-15GATEWAY ENERGY STORAGE 2Battery256.29 MWStill in queue
2021-04-15LA FUENTE ENERGY STORAGEBattery105.9831 MWWithdrawn2022-12-18

What the record shows

  • PIO PICO PLUS went from request to commercial operation in 0.7 years; GATEWAY ENERGY STORAGE took 10.0 years from a request filed the same week as two that withdrew within ten weeks.
  • The two earliest requests, filed more than three years apart in 1999 and 2003, reached commercial operation on the same day in 2009.
  • Every request filed from 2020 onwards is battery storage. Two withdrew in December 2022 and three were still active at the end of the dataset.
  • Four requests were filed on 2021-04-15 totalling 1,291 MW of storage; two of them withdrew eight days apart in December 2022.
  • Of the six projects that reached operation, five are gas and the sixth is the 250 MW battery that took a decade.

What a decision record would have to make explicit

  • The spread between the fastest and slowest completion at this node is 0.7 to 10.0 years, so an assumption drawn from one project here would not transfer to the next.
  • Requests filed on the same day resolved as far apart as ten years, so filing date ordered nothing at this node.
  • The dataset records no withdrawal reasons and no study results, so the shift from gas to storage is a description of what was filed, not of what the network allowed.

What this does and does not show

This is a reading of a public dataset, not a customer case study: no engagement, customer or client is involved. The dataset records outcomes — what was built, what withdrew, and when — but not why any project withdrew, so no cause is attributed here. Nothing on this page claims GridVision predicted, influenced or would have changed any outcome, and a pattern at one point of interconnection does not generalise to another.

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Queued Up: 2026 Edition — project-level interconnection queue dataset. Interconnection requests through year-end 2025. Used under CC BY 4.0; attribution to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and GridTracker.

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