The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday issued a road map aimed at improving processes that will allow generators to connect to the grid more quickly and efficiently.

In steps that go beyond the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s recent interconnection reform rule, the Transmission Interconnection Roadmap calls for considering market-based options to ration interconnection access and separate the interconnection process from making network upgrades.

“This is a landmark document, most notably because it offers the strongest institutional endorsement yet for reducing reliance on the interconnection process to identify and fund deep network upgrades, and to consider options for delinking interconnection processes from network upgrade planning altogether,” said Tyler Norris, a doctoral student at Duke University and former vice president of development at Cypress Creek Renewables.