By Rory D. Sweeney

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — Discussion at PJM’s Transmission Replacement Processes Senior Task Force has not advanced much in the four meetings the group has held since being reactivated in late July, but the rhetoric has softened.

The PJM Transmission Owners, their customers and RTO officials all took that as a positive sign at the task force’s most recent meeting Wednesday. Throughout the meeting, all sides thanked each other for the cooperative tone.

“We don’t think we’re that far apart,” American Municipal Power’s Ed Tatum said. AMP’s Lisa McAlister hoped it wasn’t overly optimistic to anticipate that the group might agree on a joint filing to FERC. Participants agreed to define “end-of-life” at the next meeting on Oct. 25 and determine what transmission equipment should be included in that definition.

Hiatus

The atmosphere was a far cry from the Markets and Reliability Committee meeting in July, where load interests blocked TOs’ attempt to continue the task force’s 10-month hiatus. (See Load Blocks TO Effort to Delay PJM Tx-Replacement Talks.)

The hiatus began last September, after FERC questioned whether the TOs’ procedures for planning supplemental projects provided stakeholders opportunity for “early and meaningful input and participation” as required by Order 890 (EL16-71).

Supplemental projects are proposed by TOs to meet local needs, but they are not required by PJM’s reliability, economic efficiency or operational performance criteria. Their costs are paid by the TO zone and are not regionally allocated, unlike baseline upgrades resulting from the RTO’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan.

The commission’s show cause order directed the TOs to file rule revisions, or counter with evidence that they were already in compliance, within 60 days. The TOs responded Oct. 25, contending that the Operating Agreement already complies with Order 890 but also proposed a Tariff amendment, Attachment M-3, that they said would improve transparency. Attachment M-3 would institute an annual stakeholder review of TOs’ assumptions and methodology. It also would require TOs to present their view of local transmission needs and proposed solutions for stakeholder comment.

FERC, which was without a quorum between February and August, has not ruled on the filing despite promising it would act within about three months of the TOs’ response.

At last week’s task force meeting, Exelon’s Gloria Godson reviewed a timeline of the issue and a summary of the proposed amendments.

AMP followed with a presentation that compared the TO’s suggested changes through the M-3 proposal to changes AMP proposed to the PJM Operating Agreement, Schedule 6, Regional Transmission Expansion Planning Protocols. AMP’s position would apply the same PJM process used for baseline project planning to end-of-life project planning, which Tatum said would result in the PJM Members Committee retaining filing rights under Section 205 of the Federal Power Act as opposed to shifting filing rights to the TOs as the M-3 proposal would do.

The organization said it was focused on the processes to determine when infrastructure has reached the end of its serviceable life and how it gets replaced. (On Friday, AMP released an analysis showing that more than half the transmission spending in PJM since 2012 was on supplemental projects. See related story, Report Decries Rising Tx Costs; Seeks Transparency on TO Projects.)

RTEP Process ‘Working Well’

Mark Ringhausen of Old Dominion Electric Cooperative called for pulling the TOs’ local planning for certain Supplemental projects into the RTEP process and requiring designated entity agreements between PJM and the transmission developer to set expectations and remedies for nonperformance for better PJM planning models. He said it would “provide consistency and transparency across all the TOs and PJM if we use a process that’s been working well for the past 15 years.”

He and AMP also asked for one-line diagrams to be provided for some project presentations, which they said would speed up meetings and reduce their questions and information requests.

TOs hesitated to agree to the one-line requests in public meeting materials, citing Critical Energy/Electric Infrastructure Information (CEII) concerns and that they often lack comprehensive information when projects are presented. But they said that the information is available with appropriate CEII protection. PJM acknowledged the concerns. The TOs noted that they provide project maps during the planning process, which they said serve a similar purpose, but AMP and ODEC disagreed.

Frustration

The hesitation has frustrated customers, who said they’ve heard the same arguments before and that other PJM stakeholder groups “don’t seem to have a problem working” while awaiting the FERC decision.

“You’re working very hard to improve the process without asking us what we want or need,” McAlister said.

PPL’s Frank “Chip” Richardson said the TOs are not willing to discuss augmenting what they’ve already filed at FERC but will consider other items.

Godson stressed the gravity of the show cause order, noting it “is not something that happens often.”

“Unfortunately, FERC failed to issue an order within three months as indicated due to the lack of a quorum,” she added.

GT Power Group’s Dave Pratzon said he doesn’t have a direct interest in the dispute, but he suggested that the customers list their requests and that the TOs then indicate which of them  they can talk about “rather than have everybody dance around the table.”

“Let’s get to the substantive work. We’re tired of having this same discussion. We understand the TOs’ litigation position and believe that what we’re proposing is within the bounds of the task force’s charter and not that far off — from a substantive perspective — from what the TOs proposed,” McAlister said.

“I would love nothing better than to engage in a productive discussion with the TOs on this. I can’t make them love me. … I can’t force them to do that. But we do have an MRC-approved taskforce and charter with things to work on,” Tatum said. “There’s lots of opportunities to do productive things here. There’s one group who won’t play.”

“It’s not that we won’t play. We’re here. We have considered things,” Richardson responded. “Just because we’re not willing to negotiate what is pending at the FERC in a stakeholder forum — and require the task force to work within its charter — doesn’t mean we’re not willing to play.”