PJM’s Mike Zhang on Thursday provided the Operating Committee with an update on the planned rollout of the intelligent reserve deployment (IRD), a security-constrained economic dispatch (SCED) case simulating the loss of the largest generation resource. Approval of the case would trigger a spin event either in the Mid-Atlantic Dominion zone or throughout the RTO, Zhang told the committee.

The IRD will function mostly as a normal SCED case, Zhang said, with an economic dispatch based on all the same real-time inputs that the existing cases get, including constraints and load. But because it’s deploying units for a spin event, Zhang said some aspects of the case will be done differently.

The case will add the megawatts of the largest contingency to the load forecast at the zonal level to simulate the unit loss, Zhang said, and will also be able to deploy condensers and other inflexible Tier 2 resources cleared for energy. Finally, the IRD procures additional resources to meet the new largest contingency.

Zhang said the IRD will be available to PJM dispatchers with no lag time waiting on a case to solve. He said it will more accurately price the deployment of reserves in a spin event because currently, the prices at the time of the event don’t align with what is actually happening operationally on the grid.

Because SCED is being used, Zhang said, dispatchers can accurately deploy reserves and not create other operational issues. He said enough reserves generally exist at the beginning of a spin event, so PJM wants to make sure the reserves are deployed accurately without calling on excess reserves.

The RTO is looking to implement the IRD in late September or October for dispatchers.

Several stakeholders asked for more discussion on the issue at future OC meetings.

Independent Market Monitor Joe Bowring presented questions for PJM to consider when addressing the issue in future meetings. He asked if the loss of the largest generation unit in a zone is the actual trigger for any spin event and whether PJM should determine whether a targeted amount of spinning reserves in specific locations should be called when there is a spin event rather than an “all call” of all spinning reserves in every case, which might prompt excess reserves to be deployed. He said when looking at the causes of spin events, the loss of the largest unit in a specific zone is rarely the trigger for the event.

Bulk Power System Executive Order

Craig Glazer, PJM’s vice president of federal government policy, provided an update on the Department of Energy’s efforts to implement President Trump’s Executive Order 13920 to remove grid equipment connected to “foreign adversaries,” such as China. The presentation included a summary of the ISO/RTO Council’s response to DOE’s request for information on the bulk power system.

The May 1 order declared a national emergency regarding foreign threats to the BPS and imposed restrictions on the purchase of equipment from suppliers suspected of connections with foreign adversaries. (See Trump Declares BPS Supply Chain Emergency.)

Glazer called it a “pretty sweeping order” impacting both existing equipment and future equipment installation. He said it’s already difficult to find computer hardware and software that doesn’t have some component with connections to China.

“There’s a lot of industry concern about this because of its sweeping nature,” Glazer said.

The DOE rules regarding the executive order are due to be completed by Oct. 1. The department issued a request for information July 8 to solicit input from industry and the public on the order.

Glazer said the IRC recently filed comments with DOE, indicating that it believed the order’s language was too broad and that the scope of the problem needs to be better defined and narrowed. The council also requested that the department conduct a risk assessment to determine the impact on the grid of removing foreign components and the difficulty of replacing them.

“This is actually a big deal but has somewhat flown under the radar screen,” Glazer said.

PJM Aug. 3 Technical Issues Update

Sean McNamara of PJM discussed technical issues that temporarily caused several of the RTO’s market applications, tools, website and external email to be inaccessible for as much as a week last month.

McNamara said PJM and a vendor-initiated system updates after business hours on Aug. 3. Following the updates, the RTO’s services were unexpectedly affected and taken offline.

PJM personnel and the vendor immediately began working to resolve the technical issues, McNamara said, including performing overnight tasks.

McNamara said external email was restored by Aug. 5. While it was unavailable, he said, stakeholders were still able to communicate with PJM through the member relations help line and the information technology operations center.

Most market applications and tools were restored and available by Aug. 7, McNamara said, and the remaining tools were restored and fully functional by Aug. 10.

McNamara said the reliability of the grid was unaffected by the problems. PJM’s markets were restored quickly and have been available and running without interruption since the Aug. 3 incident.

PJM conducts regular drills for events similar to the system maintenance issue, McNamara said, which prepares the RTO to respond quickly to unforeseen problems. The RTO is currently examining what triggered the event and will implement corrective action to avoid the possibility of a reoccurrence during system maintenance work in the future.

Manual First Reads

Two first reads of PJM manual changes were presented at the OC.

Darrell Frogg of PJM reviewed updates to Manual 14D: Generator Operational Requirements as part of the periodic review. The updates include clarifying, administrative and substantive changes to the manual.

Frogg said the substantive change relates to section 7.5.1, the cold weather operational exercise, which will no longer be administered by PJM and instead be handled by the generation owners. The RTO is recommending that generation owners self-schedule testing of resources that have not operated in eight weeks leading up to Dec. 1.

Vince Stefanowicz of PJM reviewed updates to Manual 10: Pre-Scheduling Operations for the periodic review. The changes include several clarifying changes but nothing substantive, he said.

The OC will be asked to endorse the manual changes at the October meeting.