The following issues generated little or no discussion among members when they were brought before the Markets and Reliability Committee for first readings Thursday. The issues will be brought to a vote at the next MRC meeting Sept. 26.
Below are brief descriptions of the issues along with their agenda numbers and links to prior coverage in RTO Insider.
6. COORDINATED TRANSACTION SCHEDULING
MRC will be asked to approve a new product for scheduling trades between PJM and the New York ISO.
Under the current system, power often flows from PJM into New York even when PJM’s prices are higher. The new product, Coordinated Transaction Scheduling (CTS), is intended to reduce uneconomic power flows between the two regions. Traders would be able to submit “price differential” bids that would clear when the price differences between New York and PJM exceed a threshold set by the bidder.
PJM officials had planned to ask the Market Implementation Committee to endorse the proposal Aug. 7 but postponed a vote to provide answers to members’ questions.
Addressing one of the questions that came up before the MIC, PJM’s Rebecca Carroll told MRC Thursday that PJM does not expect the new product to have any impact on balancing congestion, which results because of a change in transmission system capability between the day-ahead and real-time markets. (Negative balancing congestion occurs when the real-time transmission system cannot accommodate all the transactions scheduled day ahead; positive balancing congestion occurs when the real-time transmission capability increases above what was available day ahead.)
Carroll said the scheduling of external interchange transactions won’t affect transmission capability.
(See MIC Postpones Vote on NYISO Scheduling Product; PJM, NYISO Tout New Option to Improve Power Scheduling.)
7. SYNCHRONIZED RESERVE (SR) PERFORMANCE
PJM and the Market Monitor will seek a vote on a joint proposal to boost penalties for resources that fall short of their synchronized reserve commitments. The measure, intended to address concerns that the current penalty structure is insufficient to ensure compliance, stalled at the Operating Committee in August as utilities called for more details. (See Bid to Boost Synch Reserve Penalties Stalls at OC.)
9. EFFICIENCY OF DEMAND RESPONSE REGISTRATION PROCESS
MRC will be asked to choose among three proposals for streamlining the demand response registration process. Current rules require Curtailment Service Providers to submit customer names to both the Electric Distribution Company and Load Serving Entity. The LSE’s role in the process has been largely eliminated as a result of FERC Order 745. (See PJM Proposes Streamlined DR Registration.)
10. ENERGY MARKET UP-LIFT SENIOR TASK FORCE (EMUSTF) CHARTER
MRC will be asked to vote next month on a charter for the Energy Market Uplift Senior Task Force. The task force was created by MRC May 30 to conduct a broad review of its method of providing operating reserve payments. PJM said changes are needed to reduce growing uplift costs. (See MRC Approvals 5/30/13; PJM Proposes Operating Reserve Changes to Cut Uplift.)
12. PJM MANUALS
A. Manual 12: Energy and Ancillary Market Operations and Manual 27: OATT Accounting.
Reason for changes: The changes conform to new policies developed by the System Restoration Strategy Task Force on black start generation, critical load and restoration plans.
PJM will lose some existing black start capacity as a result of pending coal plant retirements. The changes are intended to increase the pool of potential resources. Tariff changes reflecting the new policies were filed with FERC July 9 (ER13-1911).
Impact: Affected are manuals 12 and 27:
- Section 7 of Manual 27 allows the cost of cross-zonal black start units to be allocated to multiple zones based on transmission owners’ critical load share.
- Section 4.6 of Manual 12 governs the number of critical units in a zone and the ratio of black start generation to critical load in a zone. It also eliminates a restriction on the number of black start units at a station, allows units to provide service outside their zone and changes the time in which a unit must close to a dead bus.
PJM contact: Tom Hauske
B. Manual 01: Control Center and Data Exchange Requirements.
Reason for changes: The changes are necessary to comply with NERC Standard BAL-005-0.2b — Automatic Generation Control.
Impact: Creates a new tie line cut-in process requiring telemetry be in place prior to energization. Includes major changes to Section 5.3.5 (Tie Line Telemetry Specification) to provide more detailed requirements for Tie Line Telemetry and Attachment B to remove redundant text and streamline table. EOP-005-2 and EOP-008-1 requirements are updated.
PJM contact: Chris Smart
