By Rory D. Sweeney

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — The plethora of data PJM provides is only useful if the grid operator also explains what it all means, stakeholders told RTO staff last week at a special session of the Market Implementation Committee on providing transparency in how market prices are developed.

John Horstmann of Dayton Power and Light said that stakeholders are not always as informed as staff about what is significant in the numbers and what is not.

“I think we’re looking for more than just raw data,” Calpine’s David “Scarp” Scarpignato said. “We’re looking for some kind of meaning.”

Staff acknowledged the need for explanation. The meeting adjourned early, with Rami Dirani, PJM’s facilitator of sessions on the topic, agreeing to develop a presentation on what data the RTO can provide and some ideas regarding the best way to provide them. The presentation, scheduled for the committee’s next meeting July 11, will also address confidentiality and critical energy infrastructure information (CEII) considerations, he said.

Gary Greiner of Public Service Electric and Gas said that he wants to go beyond price spikes and trends and “get a seat alongside of the dispatcher as they’re making their reliability decisions” to know why units are dispatched out of market, why those units weren’t economic and why that isn’t anticipated. PJM’s current practice of reviewing the past month’s results loses the advantages of instantaneous feedback, he said.

“I don’t know that that’s a good model for price formation,” he said.

Acknowledging confidentiality and competitive concerns, Greiner urged PJM to provide the most granularity possible to help market participants understand system dynamics, such as where circumstances are changing and what’s causing it. And while he also acknowledged the importance of not making dispatchers so preoccupied with how their actions will be perceived that they hesitate to make the right decisions, he cautioned against relying on a dispatcher’s “experience and intuition” to dictate a “significant portion” of dispatch.

“As much of that as we can push into the algorithms embedded in the models, the better we are — and we won’t know that unless we can see it,” he said.

The goal for PSE&G, he said, is to make decisions as predictable as possible so market participants can anticipate situations and act on them as quickly as possible.

“I don’t have a sense of what’s going on there,” he said. “When dispatchers are taking out-of-market actions, I’d like to know what they are and why they’re taking them … to get closer to a more transparent dispatch that we all understand.”

Joe Ciabattoni, who manages PJM’s market coordination, said MISO’s forecast reports offer more granularity, which PJM is studying and plans to include in its reporting. PJM’s security-constrained economic dispatch engine provides forecasts of various intervals, including “very short-term,” “short-term,” “intermediate-term” and “real-time,” he said, adding that staff will consider what data from each category could provide meaningful information for stakeholders.

“Historically, we’ve always reported on the overall forecast because years ago, before we had sophisticated applications, that’s all that really mattered,” he said.

Dirani said he would begin compiling information in response to the group’s interests. He asked stakeholders to provide, as soon as possible, any additional issues PJM should examine and be prepared to fully evaluate all of them for the next meeting.

“I have some homework,” he said. “So do you.”