By Rory D. Sweeney

FERC agreed last week to postpone a technical conference over PJM’s frequency regulation market and appoint a settlement judge to help resolve a dispute over how the service is compensated (EL17-64, EL17-65, ER18-87).

The Energy Storage Association, Renewable Energy Systems Americas and Invenergy Storage Development, which had opposed PJM’s October 2017 proposal to revise the service, joined with the RTO in asking FERC to postpone the technical conference. They said the delay would allow them “to focus their efforts on settlement proceedings and avoid potentially duplicative information gathering.” They said appointing a settlement judge would “facilitate the expeditious resolution of the issues.”

FERC ordered the technical conference March 30 while also granting in part a complaint by the ESA and rejecting PJM’s proposed changes to improve its regulation market. (See FERC Rejects PJM Regulation Plan, Calls Tech Conference.)

In October 2017, the RTO proposed a four-part plan that included redesigning its two regulation signals to work together to manage area control error. It included a new “regulation rate of technical substitution curve” to replace the “mileage ratio” calculation that the RTO says is problematic, and adjusted calculations for performance scoring, settlements and lost opportunity costs.

The opponents argued that related operational changes had significant negative impacts on battery storage and are “a symptom of the broader problem that the RTO misuses regulation resources to reduce generation on its system for sustained periods of time.”

In rejecting PJM’s proposal, the commission said the RTO hadn’t addressed the issues for which the commission rejected previous proposals on the topic.

In their May 18 request to delay the technical conference, the parties said they’ve had “preliminary discussions” that “would be best addressed under the direction of a settlement judge and in a forum in which all interested intervenors could participate.” They promised to file a joint update within 90 days of the judge being appointed.

PJM’s Independent Market Monitor opposed the request, saying it’s “premature” because FERC’s most recent rejection remains subject to requests for rehearing.

FERC disagreed, saying its “policy favors settlement.” It ordered the judge to file an update within 30 days of being appointed and every 60 days thereafter if the discussions continue.