>>Intermittency, on the other hand, needs to be solved by storage technology,

Exactly - and that storage can also make transmission lines more effective, which, in turn can shorten the "interconnection queue" (which seems to be gated on transmission line capacity). For instance, the power carried over transmission lines varies by the hour (see the EIA hourly usage panel).

That said, engineering is a very conservative discipline — and utilities don’t seem to draw engineers that are looking to change anything in a hurry. I’ve seen this up close (long story), it’s painfully slow — and I’m in a state that’s already split energy generation and delivery charges (so fairly progressive on the energy front).

[edit] changed ‘transmission’ to ‘delivery’ in the last sentence above to disambiguate between grid transmission (typically long distance) and delivery to power consumers — based on a conversation I had with a power co engineer. [/edit]