Summer 2016 was the hottest in four years for PJM, but increased energy efficiency and behind-the-meter solar dampened loads.

PJM called 23 hot weather alerts during June, July and August, and Philadelphia, D.C., Richmond, Va., and Louisville, Ky., each recorded more than 30 days above 90 degrees. D.C. led with more than 50 days.

Under Capacity Performance rules, “we want to get these hot weather alerts out early, and probably a bit more frequently,” PJM’s Chris Pilong said.

Nevertheless, the peak load this summer — Aug. 11 — totaled only 151,293 MW, about 4% lower than the 157,509 peak for 2013 (July 18) despite similar temperatures and humidity.

Pilong said the drop likely resulted from conservation efforts, contributions from distributed resources and more efficient air conditioning, light bulbs and televisions.

Performance Assessment Hour Evaluation a Matter of Following Directions

Generators will maximize their revenues and avoid penalties during performance assessment hours by just doing what they’re told, PJM told the Operating Committee last week.

“Here’s the overall concept everyone should be taking away from this: You need to be following your regulation signal,” PJM’s Rebecca Stadelmeyer said.

PJM provides generating units with a signal in real time to follow regarding how much power they should provide. The closer that units stick to providing the requested amount, the better their performance assessment will be — even if the output is below the amount of capacity it cleared in the auction.

“If you’re following the signal to 100%, you will be adjusted to that signal even if we’re keeping that unit down,” Stadelmeyer said.

Stadelmeyer presented several hypothetical examples to explain how regulation bias factors can be used to determine a unit’s set point during an assessment hour. The factors adjust a unit’s assessment measure based on an average over the hour of the assigned regulation PJM sends to the unit. It protects generators from incurring penalties should PJM regulate a unit below its set point and defines bonuses for those regulated above their set points. However, units will not receive any bonus for operating beyond PJM’s scheduled or dispatched level, Stadelmeyer said.

The bias factor, which ranges from -1 to +1, hasn’t been used since PJM transitioned to performance-based regulation, which is more granular.

Preliminary 2017 Capital Budget Focused on Enhancing Reliability

PJM expects to spend approximately $38 million on capital projects in 2017, largely on enhancements and renovations to existing infrastructure. Of the total projected budget, nearly 82% — or about $31 million — is earmarked for software upgrades, application revamps and renovating the Technology Center.

PJM’s Jim Snow presented the proposed budget, which next gets presented to the Members Committee before going back to the Finance Committee for final recommendations. A final proposed budget is scheduled to go before the Board of Managers at its Oct. 17 meeting.

The investment in existing equipment is an increase over the 2016 budget, when $28 million was allocated to the same categories. The remaining $7 million in the proposed budget is allocated to interregional coordination and new products and services, which include funding to implement five-minute market settlements and a more user-friendly public data repository.

Nearly Year-Long Outage Planned for Line Replacement in Va.

Dominion Resources’ Elmont-Cunningham 500-kV line in the company’s north-central Virginia territory will go out of service for about a year for a rebuild starting in October. It is planned to briefly go back into service next summer and be fully in service by June 2018.

The line has reached its end-of-life criteria, and continued operation could cause voltage and thermal violations. The outage — which will run from Oct. 23 to June 2, 2017, and then Sept. 6, 2017, to Dec. 30, 2017 — isn’t expected to force any reductions in generation capacity in the area, but it may cause minor thermal overloads and low voltages. Local capacitors will provide reactive support.

“We’re working with [transmission owners] to find some potential switching solutions that could resolve the issues,” PJM’s Lagy Mathew said.

ComEd to Remove Cordova Stability SPS

The special protection scheme (SPS) ensuring stability at the Cordova Energy Center is no longer required now that all 345-kV circuit breakers at Commonwealth Edison’s Quad Cities Station 4 have been upgraded to independent pole-operated devices, ComEd said

The system trips combustion-turbine units at the center for a three-phase fault within a roughly 3-mile zone of Quad Cities that persists for more than six cycles. With the upgrades, the generators are now stable for all faults specified by ComEd and PJM criteria, and the severity of a breaker failure following three-phase faults is reduced.

The SPS is targeted for removal by the end of 2016. The units also trip from Quad Cities’ multiline outage unit trip scheme, which will remain active.

─ Rory D. Sweeney and Rich Heidorn Jr.