Utility capacity research as a standalone paid product, or stay a general pre-development shop

The capacity question is not the hard part. Getting a utility to put a number in writing is the hard part, and what they'll actually commit to is a study, on their timeline, with a deposit. If a report reads as an opinion about likelihood then it's a screening tool, which is genuinely useful, and the document needs to say plainly that it isn't a commitment. Price it as screening and the liability conversation gets easier. Price it as an answer and eventually somebody buys land on it.

The screening version is the one worth paying for. A list of 14 parcels with no way to sort them is common, and knowing which four are worth a real conversation with the utility is worth several hundred dollars each. What isn't worth paying for is a binder that concludes further study is required, which is what most consultants hand back.

Specialize. Everybody sells feasibility binders and they all compete on price because the buyer can't tell them apart. You found a thing where the buyer has no comparison and the stakes are high enough that fee sensitivity disappears. That combination doesn't come around often and it doesn't stay uncontested either, so the window matters.

Flint you're describing the exact setup where scope creep eats you alive though. High stakes, no comparable product, client with no idea what they bought. Lantern, if you do this, define the deliverable to the page. Otherwise your three days becomes eleven days on the second one because she wants you on the call with the utility, then reviewing the LOI, then explaining it to her brother.

Sorry, what is an interconnection queue? I gather it's a list of people waiting for power but waiting for what exactly, and who runs it?

@megan_doyle15 it's the list of projects that have asked the grid operator to connect to the transmission system, in order, and every one of them has to be studied for what it does to the network before it gets an agreement. Data centers, generation, big industrial loads all sit in it. The wait can be years in some regions, which is why the queue position of everything near your parcel tells you something about whether capacity is really available. That's roughly what I understand from reading, someone correct me if the study sequence works differently.

The thing I'd want to know before choosing is what your fixed costs are. If specialized means one data subscription and your own time, try it on the two neighbors and keep the general work running. You don't have to pick this year unless something expensive forces you to.