As expected, PJM transmission planners said last week they will recommend the PJM Board of Managers approve FirstEnergy’s proposed $8 million congestion-relief upgrade in the MetEd zone.
“We’re already looking at the FirstEnergy project as the project we would like to move forward on,” PJM’s Tim Horger told the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee Thursday.
The FirstEnergy project bested two proposals by LS Power to relieve congestion on the Hunterstown 230/115 kV transformer. The LS Power projects, estimated at more than $60 million each, had benefit to cost ratios of less than 2, far below FirstEnergy’s B/C ratio of more than 6.
Reliability tests of the LS Power proposals indicated one would require a new circuit breaker and the other caused reliability violations, additional costs that would further reduce their benefit-cost ratios. Adding either LS Power proposal to the FirstEnergy project would have an incremental B/C ratio of less than 1, Horger said.
The FirstEnergy project, expected to be completed in 2017, includes the installation of a second Hunterstown 230/115 kV transformer and reconductoring of the Hunterstown-Oxford 115 kV line
The project has a total revenue requirement of $11.7 million and is expected to produce savings with a net present value of $71.6 million over 15 years, a payback of 6.1 to 1. The calculations are based on a carrying charge rate of 16.7% and a 7.7% discount rate.
The three projects were among 17 congestion relief transmission proposals submitted by developers in September. PJM rejected the other 14, saying they failed to provide sufficient benefits or targeted problems that were already addressed by other upgrades. (See PJM to OK Only 1 of 17 Congestion Relief Proposals.)
$238M in Additional Reliability Projects
The FirstEnergy project will be recommended to the Board of Managers in February along with seven reliability projects totaling more than $238 million, including four in Penelec (total $82 million) and one each in PPL ($350,000), AE ($300,000). The biggest project of the seven is a $155 million upgrade in Dominion to correct overloads on the Franconia 230kV to Van Dorn 230kV line and four other lines.
2014 RTEP Timeline
Transmission owners are conducting a second-round review of inputs to the 2019 Regional Transmission Expansion Plan model. The Model incorporates updated information provided by TOs following their initial review.
PJM staff is updating contingency, interchange and generation dispatch data, with plans to finalize the case by the end of January and begin testing the model in February.
$141M in Upgrades for Generator Retirements
Planners said they have identified more than $141 million in upgrades needed to correct reliability problems resulting from the retirements of 14 plants announced late in 2013. (See chart)
PPL’s retirements of Sunbury units 1-4 will require upgrades totaling $52 million. Large upgrades were also identified as a result of the closing of the Mad River combustion turbines ($45.7 million) and Dickerson units 1-3 and Chalk Point units 1 and 2 ($43 million).
The reliability analysis on BGE’s Riverside unit 4 identified no issues.
