The PJM Planning Committee on Tuesday endorsed the RTO’s proposed “quick fix” solution to extend its deadline for responding to new transmission service requests, acting a day after FERC urged the RTO to address the rising number of requests for waivers of the RTO’s queue-related deadlines.

FERC on Monday reinstated three generation developers to PJM’s interconnection queue that had been removed for failing to make deposits or return study agreements by the RTO’s deadlines.

The commission reinstated:

• Novera Energy’s 20-MW Mansfield-South Troy solar project, which was removed after the company mistakenly expected PJM to apply more than $60,000 in deposits from projects it had withdrawn. FERC also reinstated Novera’s Roxbury solar project, which was removed when PJM said it hadn’t received a deposit the company wired to it the day before the deadline (ER21-1624).
• Savion’s 75-MW Buchanan Solar project in in Buchanan County, Va., which submitted its facilities study deposit the day after the March 31 deadline (ER21-1645). The company said the coronavirus pandemic had prevented its employees from working in their offices, “limiting and interfering with proper coordination and oversight.” It also said the deadline was the same day as the closing of PJM’s AG2 interconnection queue, in which Savion submitted 10 new requests, and the last day of the company’s fiscal year.
• Eastern Generation’s 90-MW uprate to its 850-MW Rolling Hills natural gas generator in Vinton County, Ohio (ER21-1644). The company said that although it wired its deposit on its deadline of March 29, it failed to return the executed facilities study agreement until the next day because of an oversight.

  

“We are concerned by the large, and seemingly increasing, number of requests for waivers of PJM interconnection queue-related deadlines,” the commission said in each of the three orders. “The frequency with which we are receiving these waiver requests indicates that something may be amiss with the tariff, its administration by PJM or with interconnection customers’ approach to complying with these deadlines. We encourage PJM to expeditiously work with stakeholders to evaluate the problem and propose solutions that will decrease the need for such waivers going forward.”

Commissioner James Danly dissented in all the dockets, writing that “the commission has no legal authority to retroactively waive tariff provisions that are part of a public utility’s filed rate.”

The commission’s comments appeared to be referring not only to the developers’ requests but also to PJM’s repeated requests for waivers of the requirement that it acknowledge receipt of new service requests, and issue a notice of any deficiencies, within five business days.

The RTO received its first waiver in March 2020, citing the coronavirus pandemic (ER20-1392) and a second in  September 2020, citing a high volume of new service requests (ER20-2914).

In January, it sought a third waiver, which FERC granted on March 31 while ordering PJM to submit an informational filing within 45 days updating the commission on the stakeholder review of its interconnection procedures (ER21-1016).

FERC said it agreed that it was “appropriate to explore solutions through PJM’s stakeholder process, but [it] expect[s] PJM to timely follow through on its commitment to revise its deficiency review tariff provisions through its stakeholder process to eliminate the need for similar waiver requests of its deficiency review deadlines in the future.”

Planning Committee Vote

On Tuesday, the Planning Committee endorsed the RTO’s proposal to extend its deadline for responding to new service requests, a proposal that had been under discussion by members for several months. (See “New Service Reviewed Again,” PJM PC/TEAC Briefs: April 6, 2021.)

Jason Connell, director of infrastructure planning for PJM, reviewed the problem statement and issue charge and reviewed draft tariff language outlining the RTO’s proposal giving more time for reviews of new service requests.

The issue charge passed with 99% support.

PJM’s proposed solution includes extending to 15 business days the deadline for reviewing new service requests and issuing notice of any deficiencies with a caveat that it use “reasonable efforts to do so as soon thereafter as practicable.”

The solution also includes moving up the closing of the new services queue by about three weeks: Sept. 10, instead of Sept. 30, and March 10, instead of March 31, for the two queue windows. Connell said the additional three weeks would allow more time to review applications and not affect the model build and analysis process.

Connell said the proposal would not impact the deficiency response period currently given to new service customers.

PJM currently receives 50% or more of its new service requests during the last month of a queue window, Connell said, overloading staff. The new service queue that ended Sept. 30 represented an approximately 27% increase in total number of requests over the previous queue. Of the September queue, Connell said, 340 of the 563 requests were filed in the last week, including 247 on the last day. The latest queue window that ended March 31 had a new record number of requests for PJM, he said, with 691 new requests.

Connell said that when PJM gets hundreds of requests in the final week of the queue, it is “impossible” for staff to review all the applications, leading to waiver filings with FERC. He said the new deadlines will “give us some breathing room to review all of those applications that come in at the end.”

“We’re asking for an endorsement of a solution that will relieve us of having to file these waivers with the commission,” Connell said.

Several stakeholders asked Connell if the issue charge needed to be voted on Tuesday or if it could be held for more discussion.

Connell said FERC was clear in its rulings Monday that it doesn’t want to see more waiver requests. He said PJM wanted to have the changes in place for the next queue ending in September to limit the “crush of applications” at the end of the process.

“The commission in the [March] waiver was very clear that this needed to be fixed, and we have a filing due to them next week to update them on the progress of the fix,” Connell said.

He said there are “better ways” to structure a long-term fix to the deadline issue, and stakeholders in the Interconnection Process Reform Task Force are examining changes to incentivize new service request filers to file earlier in the process.

The task force was endorsed at the April PC meeting, and key work activities are being targeted to be finished by the end of the year. (See “Interconnection Process Reform Endorsed,” PJM PC/TEAC Briefs: April 6, 2021.)