To support its claim for recovery of $9.8 million in “stranded” gas, Duke Energy filed audio recordings and transcripts of its conversations with PJM dispatchers on Jan. 27 and 28. Duke said it included the audio to emphasize “the urgency of the communication and the emergency circumstances it reflected.”

Below is a summary of those conversations, which offer a behind-the-scenes look at PJM operations under extreme stress.

Maximum Generation Alert

At 8:45 a.m. on Jan. 27, PJM issued a Maximum Generation Alert for the following day, signaling that all generation capacity resources should be ready to operate. The RTO estimated peak load of 141,000 MW, leaving it with only 1,000 MW of reserves, a fraction of its 9,450 MW reserve objective. It also issued a voltage reduction alert for the day.

A few minutes after the alerts, Greg Cecil, managing director of generation dispatch and logistics for Duke’s Midwest Commercial Generation unit, called PJM to inform dispatchers that gas might be a “limiting factor” in its ability to run its Lee County, Ill., generators the following day.

Cecil told PJM Master Dispatcher Nathan Marr he might be able to buy gas for the following day. “But if I do that, I’ve got to be able come on, and last time we did this, you guys would not let us come on,” Cecil said. At the time, gas on the pipeline supplying the Lee plant was selling for $37/mmBtu.

99.9% Certain

After first telling Cecil he “cannot anticipate” whether the plant will be needed, Marr continued, “More than likely, your units will be running.” Barring transmission constraints, Marr said, he was “99.9% [certain] you will run.”

“If you can secure gas, we would advise you to secure gas for your units,” Marr continued. “We want all units available for tomorrow.”

Marr reiterated PJM’s need for “all units” in two subsequent calls a few minutes later, at one point telling another Duke employee “if [Cecil’s] not securing gas based on an economic decision — this is not an economic decision. This is a reliability issue, so all units must be available.”

Shortly before the noon offer deadline for the day‐ahead energy market, Duke purchased $12.46 million worth of gas, enough to run five of its eight plants on both Jan. 27 and 28. (Due to the mismatch of the gas and electric days and pipeline restrictions, Duke needed to purchase enough gas for two 24-hour periods in order to cover all hours for Jan. 28.) The five units cleared in the day‐ahead market for hours ending 0800 through 1200 and hours ending 1900 through 2100.

$12 Million of Gas

Shortly after 7 a.m. on Jan. 28, Duke’s Cecil called Marr to ask whether his plant was likely to be dispatched in the real-time market. “What’s going to be the state of Lee today? Cause we’re sitting on $12 million worth of gas … And, I’ve got to do something with it,” he said.

“Right now, I’m not calling any units on,” Marr responded. “The loads are not coming in where we anticipated it.”

Marr then told Cecil there was a chance the plant would be dispatched in the evening. Cecil replied that if he sold gas it would delay the ability of the plant to begin generation.

“That [risk is] part of having a gas unit, I guess,” Marr said. “I mean, I don’t know what to tell you … You’re going to have to do whatever you have to do.”

The morning peak would hit only 133,137 MW — 4,500 MW below forecast. The evening peak, 137,336 MW, was PJM’s fourth highest winter peak on record. But it was almost 3,100 MW below forecast, and interchange provided an unusually large 6,500 MW. Additionally, generating resources performed better than expected with an 11% forced outage rate, half what it had been earlier in the month.