Excess capacity expected to be released in the third incremental auction for the 2017/18 delivery year in February would likely clear at $0 under current rules, PJM’s Jeff Bastian told the Market Implementation Committee Wednesday.
To avoid that, PJM presented a proposal that would release excess capacity on an upward trajectory, ranging from 0 MW at $10.74/MW-day to all 10,017 MW being available at $144/MW-day or 1.2 times the Base Residual Auction clearing price.
That is, the RTO would retain more capacity at lower prices but be willing to release more at a higher price.
PJM must file its plans for releasing the capacity with FERC by November. Because of that time constraint, some members suggested advancing the PJM proposal to the Markets and Reliability Committee for a first read.
Among them were Jeff Whitehead of Direct Energy and Mike Borgatti, representing NextEra Energy. Both said they would be willing to forego their companies’ alternate proposals to support PJM’s solution.
At the July MIC meeting, Direct Energy had proposed using a sloped offer curve to create a price floor that would prevent supply resources from being able to cheaply buy out of their obligation at load’s expense. NextEra proposed PJM’s sell offer equal the transitional incremental auction adder that the RTO charges to load. (See “Members Debate Ways to Release Excess Capacity into Incremental Auction,” PJM Market Implementation Committee Briefs.)
Bastian said all three approaches are intended to preserve value for load.
“If the clearing price is zero, then you are releasing capacity commitments with no benefit going back to load,” he said.
The PJM proposal contains three parts. The first retains the status quo for how PJM determines the quantity and price at which it procures or releases MW in an incremental auction due to changes in load forecast or reliability requirements.
The second part, however, would release the 10,017 MW separately, according to the upward-sloping price curve.
Lastly, any of those separately released MW that did not clear would not be included in the determination of excess commitment credits.
“We would exclude this uncleared quantity from the quantity included in the first bullet,” Bastian explained.
Katie Guerry of EnerNOC said she was surprised by PJM’s new proposal, given that in July it had presented a plan to release capacity into the 2017/18 year using the same method FERC had approved for the 2016/17 delivery year, which yielded $4.79/MW-day.
“To hear PJM changing [its] position after the conclusion of that second incremental auction, after what we’ve been hearing from PJM for months now, is a little confusing,” Guerry said, adding that she was not comfortable with the issue being advanced yet to the MRC.
“PJM’s thinking has evolved,” Bastian said. “I wouldn’t say we had a position here. When we brought this forward again, we brought it forward as a discussion item. Our intent at this point would be to release it. We could go forward using the same method as last time. But if we use the same method, we’re likely to clear at zero, and that didn’t seem to make sense.”
Whitehead said PJM’s new proposal should not be a surprise, as the committee has been debating different approaches for several months.
“I feel this has been vetted here. I understand that you may not be happy with the outcome, but the opportunity for dialogue certainly occurred,” Whitehead said to Guerry.
“There’s a reliability tradeoff for these sales,” he said. “It is critical to recognize that we have the potential to sell back 10,000 MW of capacity. To do that and to know there’s a distinct possibility that most of those MW could clear close to zero … it’s counter-intuitive that in one auction we’re valuing capacity at $150, and, in the next instance, we’re valuing it at zero. The reduction in load’s cost is 1%, while giving up 5% of reliability — that should be concerning.
“It’s a lot of capacity, and my company’s position is we need to make sure we are putting the right value on those sales,” said Whitehead.
Independent Market Monitor Joe Bowring repeated his position that PJM should not buy more capacity than it needs and should not sell it back for less than it paid. But, he said, the PJM proposal goes in the right direction.
Still, Bowring said, “There’s no cap. There is no limit. There’s no reason not to hold onto that capacity, which was purchased for a higher price.”
In the end, committee Chair Chantal Hendrzak declared the item an official first read for the group.
Order 825 Progress
PJM staff announced their preliminary plans for implementing five-minute interval data for load, generation and shortage pricing.
For generation, PJM would use existing estimated or telemetry data and create five-minute profiles that correspond to hourly revenue-quality meter data already submitted. The five-minute telemetry data would be average and combined with a scaling factor for each five-minute interval profile associated with five-minute LMPs. The total of the 12 intervals would equal the hourly revenue-quality data. This is a protocol other ISOs are using, PJM’s Adam Keech said.
Order 825 doesn’t require load to provide five-minute data, so PJM plans to use flat profiling over the 12 intervals in an hour and associate that with five-minute pricing to determine load pricing. Demand response is also submitted hourly, so PJM would prorate such resources by interval for curtailments of less than an hour. PJM doesn’t have the granularity to use state estimator data for discrete DR, Keech said.
PJM wants to continue using megawatt-hour values and augment them with five-minute LMPs for pricing. The plan hasn’t yet been discussed with other RTOs, though, and stakeholders expressed concern that differences in each RTO’s plan might impact their interaction.
For shortage pricing, PJM introduced a problem statement to develop new curves that are complementary with the rules of Order 825.
While the order allows more time for initiating shortage pricing, PJM wants to implement it jointly with the load and generator changes because of concern that five-minute pricing could distort hourly prices, Keech said. PJM has been discussing this with other RTOs, particularly ISO-NE, and have come up with similar solutions.
Currently, PJM’s four curves are very similar and all have the same $850 penalty factor. The RTO currently addresses transient shortages — those expected to last a very short time —by easing reserve requirements slightly until expected supply arrives. Order 825 prohibits PJM from doing this, so the RTO wants to develop new demand curves that complement the requirements of the order.
Members Hear First Read on Plan to ‘Un-Nest’ Operating Parameters
The MIC will be asked at its September meeting to endorse one of two proposals on whether and how to “un-nest” operating parameter definitions to separate soak time from start time (see table).
The definitions are contained in Manuals 11, 15 and 28. (See “Members OK Operating Parameters but Urge Refinements,” PJM Markets and Reliability and Members Committees Briefs.)
NYISO to be Consulted on Changing Spot-in Service Allocation Methods
Joe Wadsworth of Vitol presented further discussion on how to improve the process of allocating spot-in transmission for energy imports from NYISO.
In April, the committee approved a problem statement and issue charge on the subject. (See “Allocating Spot-in Service for NYISO Imports to be Studied,” PJM Market Implementation Committee Briefs.)
Currently, the free but limited service is allocated on a first-come, first-served basis with no priority for participants who have cleared the NYISO market.
Wadsworth proposed removing PJM’s limit on requests for spot-in service and relying on NYISO’s real-time economic evaluation to determine which importers get spot-in service. He also proposed modifying some rules and timelines for the NYISO/PJM interface.
Wadsworth said talks are planned with NYISO and he would present their feedback at the next meeting.
Although no similar concerns have been expressed regarding the MISO seam, Bowring suggested the committee consider expanding the proposal to apply to all of the neighboring RTOs.
— Suzanne Herel and Rory D. Sweeney