Synchronous Reserve Deployment Initiative

PJM stakeholders will vote next month at the Operating Committee on two different proposals seeking to improve the deployment of synchronized reserves during a spin event.

Ilyana Dropkin, an engineer in PJM’s performance compliance department, provided a summary of the initiative, developed in the Synchronized Reserve Deployment Task Force (SRDTF), at last week’s OC meeting. The task force was endorsed at the March OC meeting, and stakeholders received education around synchronized reserves and created a matrix to develop proposals. (See PJM OC Endorses Synchronized Reserve Discussion.)

Synchronized reserve events are emergency procedures triggered by PJM to maintain grid reliability in accordance with NERC’s Resource and Demand Balancing (BAL) standards. The RTO invokes those procedures under conditions such as the loss of multiple generating units at the same time or a sudden influx of load.

The task force examined ways to secure controlled deployment of synchronized reserves throughout emergency events by using tools like real-time security-constrained economic dispatch (RT SCED) to have consistent pricing and dispatch signals. The goal was to ensure BAL compliance during the recovery and maintain a reliable transition in and out of emergency events and to also define clear rules and expectations that address how PJM operators approve RT SCED cases around a synchronized reserve event.

Dropkin said the task force developed two different proposals: PJM’s intelligent reserve deployment (IRD) proposal, and a separate one by the Independent Market Monitor. In a nonbinding poll taken by stakeholders, PJM’s proposal received 75% support, while the IMM’s received 9% support. Sixteen percent of stakeholders preferred the status quo.

Michael Zhang, senior lead engineer in PJM’s markets coordination department, provided a first read of the PJM proposal. He said IRD is a SCED case that simulates the loss of the largest generation contingency on the system and for which the approval of the case will trigger a spin event.

The proposal calls for taking the megawatts of the largest generation contingency and adding them to the RTO forecast to simulate the unit loss, Zhang said. PJM would then be allowed to flip condensers and other inflexible synchronized resources cleared for reserves to energy megawatts and procure additional reserves to meet the next largest contingency.

Zhang said some of the significant changes over the status quo include updating the economic basepoints to replace all-call instructions and having active constraints controlled by IRD so that deployed resources don’t have negative impacts on the constraints.

Siva Josyula, Monitoring Analytics | © RTO Insider LLC

“IRD is an out-of-the-box solution,” Zhang said. “It’s fully optimized to deploy reserves and optimize economic solutions.”

Siva Josyula of Monitoring Analytics provided a first read of the IMM proposal. Josyula said the concept is to make sure reserves are deployed in proportion to the cause of the spin event and the resources that are deployed during a spin event are those that clear and are being compensated for providing synchronized reserves.

The proposal calls for using a reserve deployment tool that generates new dispatch signals, Josyula said. The total megawatts to deploy is equal to those lost or required for area control error recovery.

Manual 1 Changes Endorsed

Stakeholders unanimously endorsed manual changes to enshrine emergency protocols created in the wake of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic at last week’s Operating Committee meeting.

Chris Moran, senior lead analyst with PJM’s NERC compliance team, reviewed the updates to Manual 1, Attachment F: Control Center and Data Exchange Requirements, which details how the RTO’s market operation control centers conduct remote operations in emergency situations. Moran first presented the manual changes at the September OC meeting. (See “Manual 01 Changes,” PJM Operating Committee Briefs: Sept. 10, 2021.)

The attachment was originally developed and implemented at the start of the pandemic to provide guidance for remote operations in case of control center staff illnesses. The temporary attachment, which took effect in April 2020, was set to expire Dec. 31.

As the pandemic progressed, Moran said, it became evident to PJM staff that the attachment needed to become a permanent part of the manual and to apply more broadly than just COVID-19. He said the language changes include replacing COVID-19 with “exceptional circumstances,” which PJM defines as “an event or effect that can be neither anticipated nor controlled, including, but not limited to, any act of a public enemy, war, insurrection, riot, fire, severe weather, natural disaster, flood, civil unrest, explosion, pandemic or other public health emergency.”

Moran said the RTO had made one change to the proposed definition after the September OC meeting, removing language that said an emergency was valid if “reasonably determined by PJM.” Moran said existing manual language puts the decision to implement remote operations “solely on the market operation centers.”

“The market operation centers are the ones who have to make the call whether or not they need to conduct remote operations,” Moran said. “This is a last-resort option.”

The attachment changes also include updating NERC contact information for PJM.

Adrien Ford of Old Dominion Electric Cooperative thanked PJM for bringing the issue forward to the committee and making changes to “appropriately focus that the [control centers] would be making the decision” on remote operations.

Winter Weekly Reserve Target Update

Patricio Rocha Garrido of PJM’s resource adequacy planning department reviewed the results of the 2021/22 winter weekly reserve target analysis, saying the numbers differed slightly from 2020/21. PJM’s estimated 2021/22 winter weekly reserve targets | PJM

The targets for December, January and February are 24%, 27% and 21% respectively, compared to 23%, 27% and 23% last year.

The December value is slightly higher because PJM is “seeing a little bit more load uncertainty” in the month, Rocha Garrido said, while February is seeing a “little less load uncertainty.”

Patricio Rocha Garrido, PJM | © RTO Insider LLC

Rocha Garrido said the targets are part of the reserve requirement study and help PJM staff to coordinate planned generator maintenance scheduling over the winter months. The objective is to “cover against uncertainties” related to load and forced outages by ensuring that the loss-of-load expectation (LOLE) for winter is “practically at zero,” he said.

The winter weekly reserve target for each month is the highest weekly reserve percentage, rounded up to the next integer value. Rocha Garrido said the targets are only recommendations to PJM’s Operations Department.

Rocha Garrido also presented the target numbers in a separate presentation at the Oct. 5 Planning Committee meeting. The OC and the PC will be asked to endorse the results at their November meetings.

Day-ahead Schedule Reserve (DASR)

David Kimmel, senior engineer in PJM’s Performance Compliance Department, reviewed preliminary proposed changes to the 2022 day-ahead scheduling reserve (DASR) requirement.

The DASR is the sum of the requirements for all zones within PJM and any additional reserves scheduled in response to a weather alert or other conservative operations. It is the sum of the three-year averages of both the under-forecasted load forecast error (LFE) and eDART forced outage rate component. PJM’s 2022 day-ahead scheduling reserve requirement (DASR) components | PJM

Kimmel said the final 2022 DASR requirement is 4.43%, slightly lower than the 2021 requirement of 4.78%. He said the number comes from the LFE component of 2.04%, which is down 0.14% from last year, and the forced outage component of 2.39%, down 0.21% from last year.

The value will be incorporated into Manual 13 changes and be effective through April 30, after which it will be replaced with the day-ahead secondary reserves. Kimmel said the change is dependent on FERC’s review and action on reserve price formation and PJM’s operating reserve demand curve (ORDC).

The OC will be asked to endorse the changes at its November meeting.

Manual Updates

Several manuals were reviewed in first reads as part of a periodic review:

• Manual 3: Transmission Operations. Lagy Mathew of PJM’s transmission operations department reviewed the updates, which included minor changes such as removing a reference to NERC standard PRC-001 because of its retirement.
• Manual 10: Pre-Scheduling Operations. Vince Stefanowicz, senior lead engineer in PJM’s generation department, reviewed updates as a result of FERC’s approval of changes to black start unit testing.
• Manual 14D: Generator Operational Requirements. Stefanowicz also reviewed updates to Manual 14D that include the addition of several new sections, such as one describing eDART modeling requirements.
• Manual 13: Emergency Operations. PJM’s Brian Oakes reviewed updates that include notes to articulate the expectations of members’ load shed plans.