Stakeholders gave final approval to a revised Zonal Base Load definition last week that will ensure that zones don’t lose Auction Revenue Rights due to “extraordinary circumstances” that suppress their base load calculations.

The vote by the Markets and Reliability Committee was prompted by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Storm-related outages produced base loads in the AE, JCPL, PSEG and RECO zones that were far lower than would have been expected under normal conditions. (See Superstorm Sandy Stirs Change to Zonal Base Load Definition).

PJM obtained a waiver from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in February to prevent the zones from losing a portion of their Stage 1A ARR allocations as a result of the muted ZBLs.