The Markets and Reliability Committee last week endorsed changes to Manuals 14B and 18 to implement proposed capacity import limits and clarify rules on substitution of demand response resources.

Manual 14B: PJM Region Transmission Planning Process

Reason for Change: The MRC endorsed changes to Manual 14B to implement PJM’s proposed capacity import limits, now pending before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (See related story, FERC Demands More Details on Import Cap.)

Stakeholders approved the limits in November out of concerns that PJM might lack sufficient transmission to accommodate its growing volume of capacity imports. Cleared imports grew from about 3,000 MW to more than 4,500 MW in 2009-2012 before more than doubling to nearly 7,500 MW last year.

Impact: The revised methodology would limit external generation resources in this year’s base capacity auction to 6,200 MW — a 17% drop from the volume of imports that cleared in the May 2013 auction — while also setting five import zones with their own limits. (See Members OK Capacity Import Limit; Prices May Rise.)

Manual 18: PJM Capacity Market

Reason for Change: The committee endorsed changes to Manual 18 to clarify Tariff provisions that allow substitutions of demand response resources.

Impact: The change makes clear that curtailment service providers may substitute a non-performing DR registration with one or more other DR registrations in the same geographic area and with the same lead time. Providers may use Limited DR to replace Annual DR but the substitution will not count against Limited’s 10 dispatch-per-year cap. Annual DR has no limits on the number of dispatches.