PJM’s plans to limit capacity imports seem to be changing almost daily, based on reports provided to stakeholders.

Officials have said they expect to set an overall import limit of less than 11,000 MW in addition to several directional limits.

Officials told the Planning Committee Oct. 18 that they were considering five or more directional limits. (See Import Cap Likely to Settle About 9,000 MW.) But at last week’s Markets and Reliability Committee meeting, PJM staff was again referring to their original plan of three limits: North, West and South.

Stu Bresler, PJM vice president of market operations said there will “probably” be three directional limits and that the west and south limits will “probably interact.”

However many directional limits are ultimately set, their sum is expected to exceed the overall cap. But it will be the overall cap that controls.

Reliability Agreement Amendment

The proposed amendment to the Reliability Assurance Agreement (RAA) states: “PJM shall model increased power transfers from external areas into PJM to determine the transfer level at which one or more reliability criteria is violated on any monitored facilities that have an electrically significant response to such transfers, provided that PJM shall maximize transfers on other facilities not experiencing any reliability criteria violations as appropriate to increase the Capacity Import Limit. The aggregate MW quantity of transfers into PJM at the point where any increase in transfers would violate reliability criteria will establish the Capacity Import Limit.”

“The most economical bids would clear until we hit the limit,” explained Mike Kormos, PJM executive vice president, operations.

Generators with firm transmission that commit to providing capacity in future auctions and have pseudo-ties allowing PJM to control their dispatch would be exempt from the cap.

The MRC will be asked to approve the changes in November.

`Follow-on Discussion’

One issue that won’t be included in the import change is a proposal making external resources that clear subject to a must-offer requirement in subsequent auctions. Andy Ott, PJM executive vice president for markets, said that issue will be part of a “follow-on discussion.”

“This proposal is very narrow,” Ott said. The goal will be to limit PJM’s risk from imports being cut during Transmission Loading Relief procedures, a risk he said is not accounted for in PJM’s Installed Reserve Margin.

At the Oct. 18 meeting, PJM’s Mark Sims told members that the limit will be “slightly lower” than 11,000 and closer to the 8,347 MWs imported on July 16, 2013, the highest import observed in an analysis of three years of historical data.

The Planning Committee approved a problem statement on a proposed cap in response to the May Base Residual Auction, in which more than 7,400 MW of imports cleared.

PJM wants to include the new limit in February when it posts the planning parameters for the 2014 base auction. To meet that schedule, officials plan to present proposed methodology and manual language at the Planning Committee meeting Nov. 7. The MRC will be asked to vote in one of its two November meetings.