By Rich Heidorn Jr.

WILMINGTON, Del. — PJM is proposing to relax confidentiality rules regarding uplift payments and generator outages, saying they are inhibiting stakeholder discussions.

The RTO on Thursday presented the Markets and Reliability Committee a problem statement and proposed changes to section 3.5 of PJM Manual 33.

PJM said the proposed changes were prompted by requests from stakeholders for more granular data, particularly following severe system events such as weather disruptions.

The existing rules, which were prompted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 719, have “no strict definition” of what information is confidential and do not consider the age of the information — meaning data considered confidential remains that way even after the reason for nondisclosure may have passed, PJM said.

The manual currently allows release of aggregate market data only if it includes more than three market participants’ data and the aggregation is for an area no smaller than a PJM transmission zone. The rules also prohibit PJM from disclosing some data even if it has been released publicly elsewhere, such as the nuclear plant outages the Nuclear Regulatory Commission posts on its website.

As a result, said PJM’s Tom Zadlo, the RTO is unable to be specific about conditions surrounding weather events, closed-loop interfaces and transmission planning.

Uplift Recipients

The Independent Market Monitor called for changes to the confidentiality rules in February 2014, when it disclosed that 10 generating units had received $335 million in uplift payments in 2013, 38% of the RTO’s total for the year. The Monitor contends all uplift payments should be public information, saying that identifying the causes of uplift and the generators receiving payments would allow competition to reduce those costs.

PJM said then that it would be unable to disclose the names of the units in question without a FERC order. (See PJM Won’t Name Uplift Recipients.) But in its proposed manual changes, PJM altered its position, saying that generator-specific information regarding uplift payments would not be considered confidential and that the RTO may disseminate the information daily.

Other Changes

The changes also would allow PJM to release information on generation outages once they have concluded, “if PJM deems them to be relevant.” The RTO said it would release such data only when related to an event on the grid, such as severe weather or a transmission system event.

PJM noted that while generation outage data has been considered confidential by the RTO it publishes transmission outages on its OASIS system.

The RTO also would be able to disclose demand response supplies in small areas, such as a group of zip codes, information it said is important to understanding the impact of weather events and closed-loop interfaces. Specific offers or suppliers would not be released.

The identities of generators that cleared in capacity market auctions — though not their offers — also would be disclosed.

Data that is already in the public domain from other sources would no longer be considered confidential.

Market Monitor Joe Bowring said he may ask PJM to consider amendments to the scope of the problem statement, which is expected to be brought to a vote at the July MRC meeting.

Stakeholder Concerns

Jason Barker of Exelon expressed misgivings over the release of information on generators receiving uplift payments, saying it would give competitors “information about what unit costs are.”

John Citrolo of Public Service Electric and Gas also expressed concern, saying release of uplift and outage information could “send the wrong message” to investors of publicly traded companies and interfere with established communication protocols with their organized labor.