Below is a summary of the issues scheduled to be voted on at the Markets and Reliability and Members committees Thursday. Each item is listed by agenda number, description and projected time of discussion, followed by a summary of the issue and links to prior coverage in RTO Insider.

RTO Insider will be in Wilmington covering the discussions and votes. See next Tuesday’s newsletter for a full report.

Markets and Reliability Committee

2. PJM MANUALS (9:10-9:20)

Members will be asked to endorse the following manual change:

• Manual 37: Reliability Coordination — Modifies section 2.4.2. (Change management process), replacing reference to the Change Control Review Board with the Enterprise Change Management Standard. The standard ensures that changes to PJM business application systems, programs, data, systems software and hardware are authorized and applied so as not to compromise the stability and security of any information technology component. Also updates the definition of system operating limits (SOL) to make clear that PJM controls to the most conservative limits and that interconnection reliability operating limits (IROL) are an elevated level of SOL, not distinct from it. Clarifies the SOLs and IROLs monitored by the RTO as well as SOL violations reporting.

3. EXTERNAL CAPACITY TRANSFER RIGHTS (9:20-9:40)

The committee will be asked to endorse a rule change allowing load-serving entities to meet their capacity requirements with historic resources. Current capacity rules procedures lack a method to recognize historical resource and transmission commitments that were used to serve the capacity needs of LSEs’ internal network load, a situation that impacted the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency when PJM modeled its ComEd locational deliverability area (LDA) with a separate variable resource requirement curve. The proposed solution is three-pronged: The percentage internal resource requirement is enforced only if the LDA has been separately modeled due to certain triggers; a fixed resource requirement (FRR) entity would be permitted to terminate its FRR alternative election prior to meeting the minimum five-year commitment period requirement under certain conditions; and first-time elections of the FRR alternative would be due four months prior to a Base Residual Auction instead of the current two-month deadline. (See “Members OK Rule Change on External Capacity Transfer Rights” in PJM Market Implementation Committee Briefs.)

4. TRANSPARENCY OF OPERATIONAL CHANGES (9:40-9:55)

Proposed manual revisions would require PJM to announce the creation of new “closed-loop” pricing interfaces five days before the close of the next financial transmission rights auction. The rules would except outages of short duration (less than 10 days) and those setting price for demand response according to current manual and tariff instructions. PJM uses such interfaces to capture operator actions in LMPs rather than in uplift because its modeling software is unable to set prices for voltage problems. (See “Package Calls for Notice on Pricing Interfaces” in PJM MIC Briefs.)

5. MARKETS GATEWAY (9:55-10:05)

The committee will be asked to endorse revisions to the Operating Agreement and Tariff to reflect the transition from the eMarket tool to Markets Gateway. Training on the new tool is expected to be held in the second half of this year.

Members Committee

CONSENT AGENDA (1:20-1:25)

B. The committee will be asked to endorse a Tariff revision instituting previously endorsed fees for proposed transmission projects. Beginning next year, PJM will charge $5,000 to study greenfield or upgrade proposals of between $20 million and $100 million and $30,000 for projects costing more than $100 million. The fees will be implemented on a two-year trial basis. (See “PJM Lowers Proposed Tx Project Study Fee” in PJM Planning Committee Briefs.)

C. New Tariff language aims to more accurately reflect how PJM processes requests for merchant network upgrades. The changes address definitions, queue entry, agreements and the capacity market.

D. The first and second batches of revised definitions in governing documents developed by the Tariff Harmonization Senior Task Force will be considered, along with an amended liability provision that clarifies the definition of PJM net assets. (See Task Force Proposed to Resolve Inconsistencies in PJM Governing Documents.)

ENDORSEMENT (1:25-1:55)

After failing to win approval from the MRC for a proposal to redesign the FTR and auction revenue rights process, Steve Lieberman of Old Dominion Electric Cooperative is seeking its endorsement from the Members Committee. (See ODEC Seeks Last-Ditch Vote on Deadlocked FTR/ARR Issue.)

The proposal garnered just 59% of a sector-weighted vote at the MRC’s July 23 meeting. Since then, the proposal has been presented to the Liaison Committee and has been the subject of conversation among numerous stakeholders and members, according to ODEC.

The proposal incorporates three elements. The first, drawn from a PJM staff proposal regarding the Stage 1A 10-year process, would escalate current ARR results using a zonal load forecast growth rate of +1.5%. The other two elements would change the method of reporting the monthly payout ratio so that any negative target allocations are included as revenue, slightly increasing the reported payout ratio. It also would treat each FTR individually, eliminating the netting of positively and negatively valued FTR positions in a portfolio prior to determining positively valued FTR payout ratios.