VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — PJM has determined that it must keep a loop flow in place with NYISO when the Con Ed-PSEG “wheel” ends next year, but that by 2021 that “operational baseflow” will be reduced to zero.

Presenting at the Market Implementation, Operating and Planning committees last week, PJM staff explained that anything less than a 400-MW loop flow on the current system would “impact” system reliability and minimize transfer capability across the seam.

The baseflow is “allowing us the flexibility to operate the system until we get some experience operating without the wheel in place,” PJM’s Ken Seiler said.

Staff also said they don’t expect “widespread congestion impacts” outside of the northern New Jersey and southern New York area.

Dave Pratzon of GT Power Group asked that PJM provide an annual review to see if maintaining the 400-MW operational baseflow assumption was necessary for reliable, economic system operation.

At the Planning Committee meeting, Citigroup Energy’s Barry Trayers said NYISO has been explaining that the 400-MW loop is necessary to keep PSEG North’s territory from “voltage collapse” and asked if that was accurate.

“We’re going to have to circle back with New York,” PJM’s Paul McGlynn said. “We haven’t seen anything like that in our analyses.”

He said they would also check with PJM’s Operations Department to determine if they’re seeing “anything close to that.”

Manual Updates Endorsed

The Planning Committee endorsed updates to three manuals.

In Manual 21: Rules and Procedures for Determination of Generating Capability, an acceptance test is now required for newly constructed units for which a summer/winter verification test after the unit is in service previously was sufficient. “Not many people are doing this so what we have to do is go back and look at your verification tests,” PJM’s Jerry Bell said. “You have to do this before you can cap-mod your unit up,” he added, using the shorthand for a notice of a capacity modification.

In addition to an administrative cleanup, the changes add detail to the testing requirements, including an expanded section on capacity interconnection rights. It also adds rules for non-hydro storage and removes class average information for wind and solar resources that will instead be posted to the planning resource page on PJM’s website.

Manual 14B: PJM Region Transmission Planning Process is being amended to remove from the capacity import limit (CIL) procedure references to the Reliability Pricing Model, PJM’s capacity market design. Starting with the 2020/21 delivery year, the CIL will not be applied as part of the capacity process. Instead, the limits will be considered during interconnection studies for new transmission service requests, part of new study procedures approved in early 2016.

PJM’s Michael Herman explained how the CIL will be calculated and used to determine that the import capacity is sufficient to support PJM’s capacity benefit margin (CBM), the portion of the RTO’s emergency import capability that is deducted from total transfer capability to determine available transfer capability (ATC). CBM is reserved to import capacity assistance from external areas under emergency conditions.

Section G.11 states that the CIL “is used to confirm that import capability into the PJM system is sufficient to support the PJM [CBM] as well as confirmed long-term firm transmission service.”

American Municipal Power’s Ed Tatum questioned how “sufficient” is determined. McGlynn explained there is an annual study in accordance with NERC reliability standards. Stakeholders endorsed the intent of the manual changes but asked that that explanation be written into the revisions. Herman confirmed that they will be.

In Manual 14A: Generation and Transmission Interconnection Process, the word “interconnection” is being replaced with “new service” to ensure cost allocation will occur for all projects. The change addressed needs identified at special PC sessions regarding new service request cost allocation and study methods.

Too Soon to Include CO₂ Pricing in Market Efficiency Analyses

PJM staff have decided not to incorporate CO₂ prices into their analysis of market efficiency transmission projects, saying that accurately projecting the likely price depends heavily on how — or whether — states comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

“States have seven different compliance pathways and their choices will have very different impacts on resource entry and exit,” PJM said in a presentation.

Staff also noted that the EPA rule could be thrown out due to pending legal changes. (See Analysis: No Knock Out Blow for Clean Power Plan Foes in Court Arguments.)

“Right now, there’s not a clear driver that could be built into the market efficiency scenario,” PJM’s Muhsin Abdur-Rahman told the PC.

Load Voices Concern over Transmission Repair Costs

During a review of immediate-need projects, members of the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee questioned the proposed solutions for the loss of the South Butler-Collingwood 345-kV line in American Electric Power’s transmission zone, which would result in a loss of more than 300 MW of load.

The region, an industrial zone in which continued growth is expected, is partially served by local 69-kV lines built in the 1950s with wood poles and distribution-class cross arms. A wholesale distribution cooperative served by such 69-kV lines has experienced multiple forced and momentary outages recently, planners said.

One option, which was estimated to cost $76.5 million, would add a new 345-kV switching station near Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) in Butler, Ind., a tap of the Rob Park–Allen 345-kV line and the addition of about 17 miles of a double-circuit 345-kV line.

PJM recommended a second option, estimated to cost $108 million. It would add new 138-kV and 345/138-kV stations and reconstruct sections of the Butler-North Hicksville and Auburn-Butler 69-kV lines as 138-kV double-circuit lines.  In addition, the 138-kV circuit between Dunton Lake and the SDI Wilmington substation would be reconductored.

When AMP’s Tatum asked why the project was needed immediately and could not be included in a competitive window, McGlynn explained that a data error had recently been found in the modeling, revealing that there is an overload on the line currently.

Tatum said AMP “has a problem moving forward with this.”

Carl Johnson of the PJM Public Power Coalition pointed out that this project is “exactly the kind of issue” that caused the formation of the Transmission Replacement Processes Senior Task Force. “You’re probably making the right choice, but … you couldn’t have handed us a better example,” he said.

Reimbursement through this process would distribute the costs throughout the RTO, despite the fact that part of project would replace aging infrastructure, which should stay with AEP, Johnson said.

“We’re seeing more and more examples of this,” he said.

Looking over all of the projects, Tatum commented that, “It looks like we have $520 million of projects that are immediate need. … I don’t know what we can do in the planning process to get out in front of that.”

“If we were all doing our jobs perfectly and properly, we wouldn’t have any immediate need projects,” McGlynn conceded.

Tatum then pointed out seven projects whose cost estimates had ballooned from $205 million originally to $372 million, about an 82% increase.

“We might need to do better than an 82% increase, and I’d like to see if PJM could help us with that,” he said. “I hope that as we move forward and continue enhancing our planning process and ability that our cost estimates might be a little bit more robust at the initiation of a project.”

– Rory D. Sweeney