Members will consider relaxing metering requirements to make it more practical for residential customers to offer demand response into the synchronous reserve market under a problem statement approved by the Market Implementation Committee Friday.

Frank Lacey, of curtailment service provider Comverge, proposed the problem statement, saying DR has proven to be “a capable synchronous resource.” He said current PJM rules that require one-minute metering of synchronous resources are cost prohibitive to residential customers at $1,000 to $1,500 per meter.

PJM’s Pete Langbein said “There’s nothing today to prevent residential customers from entering the market,” though he conceded that “metering is another issue.” The question, he said, “is there a way to measure [DR response] without one-minute metering?”

Dave Pratzon, of GT Power Group, noted that only 59% of metered DR  provided Tier 2 synch reserve as expected in 2013 (similar to the rate for Tier 2 generation resources). “I think it’s going to be a high hurdle to add a new class of customers that isn’t metered at all,” he said.

The MIC approved the problem statement with 12 no votes and 11 abstentions. It will hear the issue charge at its March meeting.