By Christen Smith

Below is a summary of the issues scheduled to be brought to a vote at the PJM Markets and Reliability and Members committees on Thursday. Each item is listed by agenda number, description and projected time of discussion, followed by a summary of the issue and links to prior coverage in RTO Insider.

RTO Insider will be in Wilmington, Del., covering the discussions and votes. See next Tuesday’s newsletter for a full report.

Markets and Reliability Committee

1. PJM Manuals (9:30-9:45)

Members will be asked to endorse the following manual changes:

A. Manual 14B: Transmission Planning Process: Cover-to-cover periodic review. Includes changes to section 1A on critical energy infrastructure information (CEII).

B. Manual 14D: Generator Operational Requirements: Added requirements to section 7.1.1 regarding generator real power control associated with FERC Order 842, which requires new generators seeking interconnections to be equipped to provide primary frequency response. The new rules apply to generators that entered the PJM transmission queue on or after Oct. 1, 2018. (See FERC Finalizes Frequency Response Requirement.)

C. Manual 12: Balancing Operations: Cover-to-cover periodic review with updates to section 3 regarding primary frequency response per FERC Order 842. The changes were endorsed by the Operating Committee on Feb. 5 over the opposition of FirstEnergy and Duke Energy. FirstEnergy challenged the manual’s formula for judging primary frequency response performance. (See “Utilities Question Primary Frequency Response Calculation,” PJM Operating Committee Briefs: Feb. 5, 2019.)

2. Transmission Replacement Process (9:45-10:00)

The discussion over how projects get removed from the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan will continue as LS Power’s Sharon Segner returns to the committee with her revised amendment to Manual 14B: Regional Transmission Planning Process.

Segner first presented the new manual language during the Jan. 24 MRC meeting as an amendment to a proposal from American Municipal Power to increase transparency of supplemental project planning. AMP accepted the amendment as friendly. Despite winning a majority of stakeholder approval, PJM declined to implement the entirety of the AMP proposal, calling it an overreach of the RTEP. (See PJM Rebuffs Stakeholders on Supplemental Projects.) Segner returned to the Feb. 7 Planning Committee meeting to discuss the tweaked amendment language and said she wasn’t sure if she would seek an endorsement at the MRC. (See “Holistic Review of RTEP Removal Suggested,” PJM PC/TEAC Briefs: Feb. 7, 2019.)

Load interests, meanwhile, sent a letter to PJM’s Board of Managers on Feb. 8 criticizing the RTO for rejecting AMP’s proposal and accusing it of shirking its responsibility as an independent regional planner. (See Load Interests Blast PJM for Inadequate Transparency.)

PJM said it will discuss the issue further with stakeholders after identifying requirements in the Operating Agreement, Tariff and manuals that spell out when projects should be removed from or added to the RTEP.

Members Committee

1. Liaison Committee Charter (1:25-1:40)

Members will be asked to approve revisions to the charter that would require the scheduling of Liaison Committee meetings with the board before its regular meeting. Under current rules, Liaison Committee meetings alternate between before and after the board meeting. The change came out of discussions at the Stakeholder Process Forum.

2. Opportunity Cost Calculator (1:40-1:55)

Members will be asked to approve proposed OA Schedule 2 revisions related to the Independent Market Monitor’s opportunity cost calculator.

The vote follows a four-month deferral after stakeholders threatened to push through OA changes if PJM refused to accept the Monitor’s calculator in determining generators’ cost-based energy offers. The threat incentivized the RTO and the Monitor to work toward a deal. (See “PJM, Monitor Come to Agreement on Opportunity Cost Calculator,” PJM MRC/MC Briefs: Sept. 27, 2018.)

Under the agreement, Monitoring Analytics will continue to use its calculator to determine the opportunity costs for market participants and will explain its inputs and logic to PJM to demonstrate that the unit-specific opportunity costs are compliant with the OA. In return, PJM acknowledged that the calculator is the Monitor’s intellectual property, that the agreement is not a license for PJM to use the calculator and that the RTO will not attempt to reverse engineer it.

Bob O’Connell of Panda Power Funds, who proposed the OA changes, moved to postpone a vote at the September MC meeting to give PJM and the Monitor time to put the new process in effect.

The revisions would specify that any opportunity cost calculated using the Monitor’s tool “shall be deemed approved as in compliance with the PJM market rules by the Office of the Interconnection.”