PJM stakeholders unanimously endorsed an issue charge that seeks to improve the deployment of synchronized reserves during a spin event.

The acclamation vote at last week’s Operating Committee meeting came a month after some members questioned whether the timing of the issue was appropriate given major changes coming in the reserve market next year. (See “Synchronized Reserve Event,” PJM Operating Committee Briefs: Feb. 11, 2021.)

Chris Pilong, director of operations planning for PJM, provided a second read of a problem statement and issue charge. Pilong said discussions with stakeholders after last month’s OC meeting allowed PJM to “further refine” the issue charge.

“I think we’re in a better space with some of those changes,” Pilong said.

Issue Charge

Synchronized reserve events are emergency procedures triggered by PJM to maintain grid reliability in accordance with NERC’s Resource and Demand Balancing (BAL) standards, Pilong said. The RTO invokes those procedures under conditions such as the loss of multiple generating units at the same time or a sudden influx of load.

Pilong said real-time security-constrained economic dispatch (RT SCED) cases are generally not used by PJM during an emergency event, which can lead to problems like unpredictable response levels by units and a combination of over- and under-response.

Under current procedure, PJM sends an all-call message to units with an instruction to ramp to full output in the case of an emergency event. But PJM dispatchers have been seeing a pattern of a slow initial recovery followed by extended over-response after an emergency event has concluded.

Because tools such as RT SCED are not used during an emergency event, pricing and dispatch signals linger from a pre-event RT SCED case and often conflict with all-call instructions because the signals don’t immediately go away.

PJM is looking to secure controlled deployment of synchronized reserves throughout emergency events by using tools like RT SCED to have consistent pricing and dispatch signals, Pilong said. The goal is to ensure BAL compliance during the recovery and maintain a reliable transition in and out of emergency events.

PJM is also looking to define clear rules and expectations that address how PJM operators approve RT SCED cases around a synchronized reserve event.

Stakeholder Feedback

Pilong said PJM expanded the key work activities in the issue charge based on feedback from stakeholders and the Independent Market Monitor at last month’s OC meeting. Changes include education around existing actions and expectations for synchronized reserve events and review of practices by other RTOs/ISOs on synchronized reserve deployment.

PJM will also provide education on the impacts of upcoming market changes, including price formation. Stakeholders had raised the issue that the timing of the work by the task force may be complicated by PJM’s revised operating reserve demand curve (ORDC), set to go into effect in May 2022. (See FERC Approves PJM Reserve Market Overhaul.)

Pilong said the group will also take a “harder look” at the analysis of metrics and data from previous emergency events.

PJM received additional stakeholder feedback regarding what should be in and out of scope for the issue charged. In-scope issues include reserve deployment method, the expectations of resources during an event, the evaluation of unit performance and pricing in the aftermath of an emergency event. Out-of-scope issues include the penalty rate for non-performance, operating reserve demand curve and price formation changes, and reserve procurement changes.

“We’re staying very focused on the deployment of reserves that we have cleared,” Pilong said.

Moving Ahead

PJM’s proposed approach to the issue calls for convening a task force within the OC to recommend potential changes to resource expectations during events, Pilong said, with an estimated work schedule of six to 12 months.

Siva Josyula of the IMM thanked PJM for working to clarify the issue charge after last month’s OC meeting. Josyula said the IMM still disagrees with PJM’s decision to leave changes to pricing of reserves as in-scope activities while keeping ORDC and price formation changes out of scope.

“Once we get into the discussion, there could potentially be some gray areas opening up as to what’s in scope and out of scope,” Josyula said.

Pilong said it was “a little tricky” to deal with the pricing issue, but PJM didn’t want to limit discussions because it wants to be “more consistent” and have better clarity on what pricing should look like during and after an emergency event and to have dispatch instructions and pricing signals aligned.