VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — PJM received 118 transmission proposals during the competitive window that closed in February, including 92 market efficiency projects and 26 to address reliability problems.
Nineteen transmission owners and non-incumbent developers submitted proposals, led by ITC Holdings, FirstEnergy, Commonwealth Edison and American Electric Power with at least 10 each.
The market efficiency proposals are intended to relieve congestion in 12 locations, nearly half of the proposals targeting the AP SOUTH and AEP-DOM regional facilities. In addition to 34 transmission owner upgrades ranging from $100,000 to $81 million, there were 58 greenfield proposals projected to cost from $9 million to $433 million. (See PJM TEAC IDs 20 Market Efficiency Candidates.)
PJM’s Tim Horger suggested that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s ruling last month rejecting the RTO’s proposed $30,000 fee on greenfield proposals was a factor in the unexpectedly high number of market efficiency proposals. (See FERC Rejects Fee on Greenfield Transmission Projects.)
Initial analysis of the proposals will require more than 15,000 hours of computing time, assuming 160 hours of base runs for each proposal, Horger told members of the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee on Thursday. Sensitivity analyses on projects that pass the initial screening will require additional time.
“This will be a challenge, at the least,” Horger said. “I’m confident our guys will get it done.”
Particularly demanding will be the projects proposed for AP SOUTH, he said, as they can impact other interfaces. Those proposals likely will take until the end of the year to review.
The reliability proposals consist of 15 transmission owner upgrades with a cost range of $300,000 to $62 million and 11 greenfield projects estimated from $18 million to $101 million.
PJM Studying Tx Upgrades Needed Under EPA Carbon Rule
PJM is conducting studies to determine transmission upgrades that may be needed to respond to plant retirements resulting from the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emission rule.
Preliminary results of a scenario assuming 16 GW of at-risk generation identified voltage and thermal violations. The plant retirements were assumed to be evenly distributed between 2020 and 2029.
The voltage issues affected the PJM West, Southwest MAAC and Dominion locational deliverability areas (LDAs).
Thermal violations prevented five LDAs from importing their capacity emergency transfer objective (CETO) values in the load deliverability test. The generation deliverability test found multiple 230-kV violations, mostly in Southwest MAAC.
Planners will continue the analysis with scenarios assuming 6 GW and 32 GW of generation at risk.
— Suzanne Herel