Interim PJM CEO Susan J. Riley told the Markets and Reliability Committee last week that the Board of Managers remains committed to an overhaul of market design in the wake of the GreenHat Energy default, but she urged stakeholders to move forward on “badly needed” credit policy reforms.

“I’m in the process of retaining independent expert policy advisers,” she said. “We need to get that right. We can’t have another situation like we experienced earlier with GreenHat.”

Riley took over for former CEO Andy Ott this month after he retired and expects it will take about four months to find his permanent replacement. In the meantime, Riley said she’s been meeting with stakeholders to better understand the shifting dynamics of members’ priorities and to “strengthen relationships.”

“Your needs are changing and they vary from state to state, sector to sector and company to company,” she said. “The pace of change is faster than what we’ve seen in the past.

“We are a service organization, and I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I look forward to working with you over the next few months to better understand what your needs are.”

Riley concluded her remarks by saying PJM has the “highest concentration of really smart, highly ethical, highly committed people that I’ve ever worked with, anywhere, and I don’t want to lose sight of that as we move forward in making necessary changes. I think you, as our members, are in very good hands here.”

Task Force Sunsets Postponed

Dave Anders, PJM’s director of stakeholder affairs, told the MRC he will postpone a vote on sunsetting both the Energy Price Formation Senior Task Force and the Energy Market Uplift Senior Task Force as staff review other dormant groups in need of closure.

“I think there are more groups out there we need to take a look at,” he said. “We haven’t been really very disciplined about sunsetting task forces.”

The uplift group formed in 2013 and completed its work in 2017 with changes to the Operating Agreement to restrict the locations for up-to-congestion trades, increment offers and decrement bids. (See “Stakeholders Endorse Third Phase of PJM’s Uplift Solution Despite Opposition,” PJM MRC/MC Briefs: June 22, 2017.)

PJM filed its price formation plan with FERC in March and awaits a ruling. Some stakeholders questioned the logic of sunsetting the related task force before receiving an order from FERC, to which Anders agreed. He said staff will return to the MRC with a more comprehensive list of task forces next month.

Manuals Endorsed

PJM stakeholders unanimously endorsed the following manual revisions:

B. Manual 13: Emergency Operations, to provide a single location for reporting operational restrictions that impact multiday operations planning, replacing multiple forms of reporting currently employed by members. The changes, which incorporate lessons learned from 2018/19 winter operations, are intended to improve operators’ situational awareness and communication regarding cross-sector interdependencies. The changes align with new Markets Gateway functionality for resource limitation reporting to be implemented on Aug. 1 and adds clarifications on which units may be placed in maximum emergency during emergency operations.

C. Manual 18: PJM Capacity Market, adding administrative updates, deleting outdated provisions and adding revisions to conform with FERC orders resulting from a periodic review.

D. Manual 21: Rules & Procedures for Determination of Generating Capability, to clarify capacity injection rights (CIR) evaluations and conform with Tariff changes. Adds more explicit explanations and some omitted testing criteria regarding CIR evaluations for combined cycle units. Reclassifies run-of-river hydro units with storage and dispatch capability.

E. Manual 28: Operating Agreement Accounting, resulting from the periodic review. Adds documentation of the process to be used if state estimator loss data are unavailable for calculating transmission loss deration factors. Deletes obsolete section on calculation of credits for quick-start reserves. Updates credit calculation for resources providing reactive services. Updates formula terms for consistency.

F. Manual 39: Nuclear Plant Interface Coordination, resulting from the periodic review with the Nuclear Generators Owners User Group. Adds language on coordination around remedial action and load shedding schemes. Adds language regarding the regulatory requirements of the deactivation and retirement process and to address the coordination between reliability coordinators.

— Christen Smith