VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — Two 345-kV lines that were knocked out when a tornado leveled four transmission towers in Commonwealth Edison territory on June 22 were back online as of July 12, PJM’s Chris Pilong told the Operating Committee last week.
The twister hit near LaSalle, in North-Central Illinois, around 10 p.m., he said, tripping the Plano 0101 and Plano 0102 lines.
In response, a number of generators in the ComEd zone and other PJM areas manually reduced their output.
The effect of the eight-day outage was localized, with only minimal congestion of $136,000, Pilong said.
“There were no emergency procedures, nothing too crazy,” he said.
On June 30, the Plano 0101 was restored using a temporary structure while the other line remained out of service. On July 10, Plano 0101 was moved onto a permanent structure, Pilong said. By the end of July 12, both lines had been restored.
EKPC Forecast Errors Puzzle Operators
In other reports on operations, Pilong noted that the Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative zone has been showing an unusually high percentage of peak load forecast errors.
“There is something going on there. We’re trying to dig into it and nail down who’s high — is it just one entity?” he said. EKPC has 16 member cooperatives.
“It is a cause for concern, but it doesn’t violate NERC criteria,” Committee Chairman Mike Bryson said. “When we see a significant change like that, we want to understand what’s causing it and see if we have to make any adjustments.”
The average RTO-wide load forecast error performance for June was 2.57%, within the goal of 3%. EKPC’s was highest, at 3.6%, down from 4.7% for the first quarter of the year.
CP Units to be Ineligible for Winter Testing; May Choose to Self-Schedule
Generators that have cleared as Capacity Performance will be ineligible to participate in the PJM-scheduled cold weather tests beginning this winter under changes to Manual 14D that the OC will be asked to endorse next month.
Non-CP resources will be eligible for testing and will be compensated as a pool-scheduled resource on their cost-based schedule.
CP resources may elect to self-schedule tests, enabling them to be compensated as a self-scheduling resource according to the Tariff.
Regardless of how the tests are performed, PJM wants to keep track of the results and is asking that they be submitted within five days of testing.
“When it included all units, there were a number of unit owners that told us they were testing outside of the program,” Bryson said. “That’s one of the things we’re trying to capture.”
The changes came after generators last month opposed a proposal to keep CP units in the testing but end their compensation. All capacity resources will be required to be CP beginning in the 2020/21 delivery year. (See “PJM Plans to End Compensation for CP Units Participating in Winter Testing,” PJM Operating Committee Briefs.)
— Suzanne Herel