By Rich Heidorn Jr.

FERC last week approved PJM’s updated annual cost responsibility assignments for projects in the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP) over the objections of Old Dominion Electric Cooperative (ODEC), which said the RTO should be required to provide more information (ER20-717).

Included in the approvals are assessments for regional facilities, necessary lower-voltage facilities and merchant transmission facilities with firm withdrawal rights, based on the zones’ and facilities’ peak load in the 12 months ending Oct. 31, 2019.

ODEC asked FERC to order PJM to specify each zone’s peak megawatt value and the date and time of the peaks, which were not included in the RTO’s Dec. 31 cost allocation filing. The commission said ODEC should seek the information through the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee and noted the data are “readily available” on the RTO’s website.

$237M in RTEP Additions

The ruling came a week after the PJM Board of Managers added almost $237 million in baseline transmission projects to the RTEP: FERC Form 715 transmission owner criteria projects totaling $202.37 million and RTO baseline reliability projects totaling $34.6 million.

American Electric Power is responsible for $188.4 million in Form 715 improvements, including projects to correct N-1 and N-1-1 thermal and voltage violations in the western Fort Wayne, Ind., area for contingencies in the Carroll, Sorenson, Columbia and Whitley stations.

Another AEP project will correct N-1-1 thermal and voltage violations on the Bradley-Sun 46-kV line section and Tams Mountain-Glen White 46-kV line section.

Also making Form 715 improvements is American Municipal Power, which is spending $7.5 million for a new 0.3-mile 138-kV, double-circuit line tapping the Beaver-Black River 138-kV line and expansion of the Amherst No. 2 substation.

Two TOs are making investments driven by reliability or baseline load growth.

Delmarva Power & Light is spending $20.5 million to rebuild 12 miles of the Wye Mills-Stevensville 69-kV line and reconductoring the Silverside-Darley 69-kV line and replacing terminal equipment.

FirstEnergy’s American Transmission Systems Inc. (ATSI) is spending $14.1 million to reconductor an 8.4-mile section of the Leroy Center-Mayfield Q1 line between Leroy Center and Pawnee Tap.

The spending approved Feb. 20 is in addition to $163 million in projects, mostly to address baseline reliability criteria violations, which the board approved Dec. 3.

Previously approved baseline projects to replace three 230-kV breakers in the PSEG zone in Bergen County, N.J., totaling $3 million are no longer required and have been canceled.

Since 2000, PJM has authorized $37.8 billion in RTEP projects.