Not for batteries since a battery that can deliver 17 GW for an hour is much smaller than one that can deliver 17 GW for a week. Usually grid connections are measured in power since you could use it at 100% indefinitely - not so with a battery , so hours matter.
Regardless, the interconnection absolutely does not care about the MWh of the battery. It has no concern, no care, no need to know. So when talking about interconnection queues, only the GW are reported.
As far as 17GW of battery, the only technology shipping at that scale is lithium ion, and all lithium ion grid batteries are designed for 30 minutes to 4 hours of duration at maximum discharge.
The idea of a week long battery is not a realistic one at this stage. With Texas' excellent solar resources, it may never need long-duration storage, whenever/if that tech gets developed.
So bringing up battery storage on an article about a blackout caused by a multi day storm might lead some people to believe that batteries would make a difference in this situation, when they wouldn't, regardless of the GW.
> we haven't figured out a good way to store electrical energy.
Before batteries solve all the problems in the grid, they get installed in smaller amounts. We are in the "smaller" amounts, even though small isn't that small actually. And even 17GW with 2 hours duration can help massively with congestion on transmission lines.
