Markets and Reliability Committee

PJM to Drop Fees for Tx Projects under $20M

WILMINGTON, Del. — PJM will not charge transmission developers fees on any projects estimated to cost less than $20 million under a revised proposal it plans to file with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

FERC last month rejected an earlier proposal that would have assessed a $30,000 fee on all greenfield transmission proposals and transmission owner upgrades of $20 million or more.

The commission said the proposal was discriminatory because PJM failed to show that the costs of studying upgrades under $20 million would be different than the costs of studying greenfield projects with similar costs (ER15-639). (See FERC Rejects Fee on Greenfield Transmission Projects.)

“We think it makes most sense to refile the proposal … with the change that there would be no fees for any projects under $20 million, and that would eliminate the concern that FERC had raised,” Steve Herling, vice president of planning, told the Markets and Reliability Committee.

The committee will be asked to endorse the proposed revisions at its next meeting.

MRC Greenlights PJM/MISO Scheduling Product

The MRC on Thursday endorsed the creation of a new, optional Coordinated Transaction Scheduling product intended to reduce uneconomic power flows between PJM and MISO. There were two abstentions but no objections.

Under CTS, traders can submit “price differential” bids that clear when the price difference between MISO and PJM exceeds a threshold set by the bidder.

The product is expected to be implemented by November 2016, said Becky Carroll, PJM manager of real-time operations. PJM and MISO would evaluate traders’ bids individually, and the commonly cleared set would be the transactions that flow.

Thursday’s endorsement was just the start of several approvals of the Joint Operating Agreement. PJM and MISO also will be adding details of their forward-price projection methodology, and stakeholders will have to approve the accuracy of the pricing models.

The product is similar to the one launched Nov. 4 with NYISO. Of that initiative, Carroll said, “We’re definitely seeing more participation than we expected. We thought market participants would be slow in getting comfortable with the product.”

Unlike NYISO, MISO does not currently post look-ahead prices, but it expects to introduce a calculating mechanism by the end of 2015.

Manual Changes Approved

The MRC approved the following Thursday with no opposition:

• Manual 02: Transmission Service Request — Changes clarify and more accurately describe the Available Transfer Capability (ATC) processes and the Initial Study process for long-term firm transmission service requests. They include a grammatical cleanup; updated references to the Joint Operating Agreement; and links to the deliverability analysis in Manual14A and Manual 14B.
• Manual 14A: Generation and Transmission Interconnection Process — Adds Feasibility Study data form and Impact Study data form so that developers can more easily see data requirements.
• Manual 14B: PJM Regional Transmission Planning Process —Updated to reflect existing long-term deliverability analysis procedures and cleanup language regarding voltage drop analyses, generator deliverability analyses, load deliverability analyses and cost allocation. Revisions make no changes to upgrades or cost allocations.
• Manual 40: Training and Certifications Requirements — Revisions resulting from the annual review required by North American Electric Reliability Corp. standard PER-005-2; includes a new section on training of operations support personnel.

Members Committee

TOs Propose Cost Allocation Change

PJM’s Transmission Owners are proposing a change to the way costs are allocated for reliability projects that are included in the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan due only to an individual Transmission Owner’s planning criteria.

The revision to Schedule 12 of the PJM Tariff, presented Thursday’s Members Committee meeting, clarifies that such costs will be allocated to the local Transmission Owner. If the project is required by regional criteria from PJM, it will be subject to regional cost allocation.

The change was recently announced by the Transmission Owners Agreement Administrative Committee.

Historically, the application of TO planning criteria has resulted in lower voltage projects. However, that has evolved to include criteria more stringent than required by PJM, due to aging infrastructure and storm hardening, which necessitate more significant investment.

— Suzanne Herel