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November 27, 2024

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Maryland County to Challenge PEPCO Rate Hike

Isiah Leggett, chief executive of Montgomery County, MD, said last week the county will appeal the Maryland Public Service Commission’s decision awarding Potomac Electric Power Co. (Pepco) a $28 million increase in distribution rates and a $24 million surcharge to accelerate the hardening of feeder lines.

Leggett said that the PSC’s decision to approve the surcharge was “premature.”

“I believe that Pepco has made improvements in their communications, infrastructure, and emergency response systems since last summer’s ‘Derecho’ storm. However, just how improved these changes are have not yet been seriously tested,” Leggett told The Washington Post.

Leggett, who is seeking his third term as county executive, will face off against his predecessor, Douglas Duncan, and County Councilman Phil Andrews in next June’s Democratic primary.

Andrews has criticized Leggett for a series of tax hikes, including a 2010 increase in the county’s energy tax that increased household electric bills by about $139 annually.

The surcharge and base rate increase approved by the PSC will boost average residential bills by about $26 per year. (See MD OKs $28 Million Base Rate Boost for PEPCO.)

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New Rules for Wind Lost Opportunity Costs

Wind farms that fail to follow PJM’s electronic dispatch signals will no longer receive lost opportunity cost payments under a tariff amendment approved by the MRC.

Reason for change: Some wind generators are not following their economic basepoint, requiring PJM to issue manual dispatch instructions. This delays generators’ responses, causing less efficient market operations and a potential risk to system reliability, PJM says.

PJM proposed the new language as a Tariff change in response to a May 29 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission order that rejected its earlier proposal to incorporate the new rules in the Operating Agreement. The commission said the OA language “failed to provide any detail or tariff language describing the specific circumstances under which compensation would be reduced or how the compensation would be reduced.”

Impact: Would add language to section 3.2.3 of Tariff Schedule 1 to deny lost opportunity credits to pool-scheduled or self-scheduled wind generators that fail to follow PJM dispatchers’ electronic instructions to reduce output. (See PJM to Tighten Penalties on Wayward Wind.)

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Manual Changes: 1, 12, 19, 20

The Markets and Reliability Committee approved the following manual changes Thursday.

Manual 1: Control Center and Data Exchange Requirements

Reason for change: New rules for access to PJM Energy Management System (EMS).

Impacts:

  • Added new section 2.5.7 detailing rules for transmission owner read-only access to PJM’s EMS. No screen scraping is allowed;
  • Modified section 3.2.3 to clarify procedures for data communication outages;
  • Modified section 4.2.4 to clarify repeating of All Call messages;
  • Adds details to Information Access Matrix in Attachment A.

Manual 12: Balancing Operations

Reason for change: PJM is changing the regulation requirement to align it with operational needs and address volatility in light load periods.

Impacts:

  • Changes On-peak (05:00-23:59) requirement to 700 effective MW, a decrease in the requirement for 52% of days, an increase for 48% of days. Net daily decrease of about 60 MW (section 4.4.3).
  • Changes Off-peak (00:00-04:59) requirement to 525 effective MW, an increase for 66% of days and a decrease for 34% of days. Net daily increase of about 20 MW (section 4.4.3).
  • Changes regulation scoring methods:
    • Performance scoring for small regulation allocation: Historical performance scores will be used if the control signal has an average absolute value less than 1% of the regulation assignment (section 4.5.6);
    • Performance scores when data is not available: Historical performance scores will be used if data is not available and for intervals less than 15 contiguous minutes (adds section 4.5.9);
    • Regulation Assignments: Scoring will be suspended for 10 minutes after assignment to allow time to ramp into position (adds section 4.5.10).

PJM contact: Rus Ogborn

Manual 19: Load Forecasting and Analysis.

Reason for changes: Integration of East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC), addition of annual demand resources and need to ensure accuracy of load shed programs.

Impacts:

  • Adds EKPC to load forecast model;
  • Revises assumption for winter load management;
  • Makes minor typo fixes and clarifications for NERC audits;
  • Changes demand resources available in winter months due to addition of annual DR product;
  • Codifies guidelines for switch operability studies for load management programs. The guidelines are designed to ensure the accuracy of load shed estimates for participants in direct load control programs. The study must be designed for a minimum 90% confidence level and based on a randomly selected sample from the entire population of participating customers. No customers can be excluded.

PJM contact: John Reynolds

Manual 20: PJM Resource Adequacy Analysis

Reason for change: Codifying procedure approved by FERC. The changes were endorsed by the Planning Committee in October 2012.

Impact: Revises section 5 to add Test 2 for the six-hour duration requirement for the Limited DR Product.  The Test 2 procedure is effective with the 2016/17 Delivery Year.

PJM contact: Tom Falin

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New Process for Exceptions to Generator Parameters

PJM would add new processes for generators seeking exemptions from operating parameters under changes presented to the Markets and Reliability Committee Thursday.

PJM’s generation parameters set defaults for different types and sizes of generators. The parameters cover minimum run and down times, maximum daily and weekly starts and turn down ratios (Eco Max/Eco Min).

They were initiated in 2008 to ensure lower make whole payments for generators whose entire offers were not covered by Locational Marginal Pricing revenues.

The proposed change, the result of a year-long effort between PJM and the Market Monitor, would create three types of exemptions:

  • Temporary Exception: A one-time exception of 30 days or less.
  • Period Exception: An exception lasting for at least 31 days but no more than one year during the 12 months between June 1 and May 31.
  • Persistent Exception: An exception lasting for at least one year.

MRC will be asked to approve the changes at its next meeting.

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Ridge to Headline 20/20 Forum on Grid Resiliency

Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge will be the keynote speaker at PJM’s Grid 20/20 forum Nov. 11 and 12 in Philadelphia.

The forum, which will take place at the Sheraton Society Hill, will focus on the electric power grid’s ability to withstand extreme weather challenges and cyber attacks.

The forum will cover the ability of the grid to withstand shocks during a physical or cybersecurity event, communication best practices, and the role of policy and investment.

PJM contacts: Erin Sechrist (sechre@pjm.com) and Sarah Burlew (burles@pjm.com).

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Earlier Deadline for Plant Retirement Notices Approved

A modified proposal to set earlier deadlines for power plants seeking exemptions from participation in PJM’s capacity market auctions won approval from the Markets and Reliability and Members committees Thursday.

The current rules require 120 days’ notice before the opening of the auction.

Stu Bresler, PJM vice president of market operations, said that’s not enough time for PJM to analyze the impact of plant retirements on system operations and determine whether the RTO needs transmission upgrades to ensure reliability.

Andy Ott, executive vice president for markets, said the changes also will give market participants more information in advance of the auctions.

The change will require generators seeking exemption from the “must-offer” requirement to file notice by Sept. 1 for the annual base residual auction (BRA) and 120 days before incremental auctions. The exemptions apply to generators that will be unable to provide capacity because they plan to retire.

At July’s MRC meeting, generators said the policy change could cause staffing problems and financial burdens at generators that will be forced to announce retirements earlier. (Generators Balk as PJM Seeks Earlier Notice on Plant Retirements.)

In response, PJM and the Market Monitor changed the proposal to provide generators more flexibility and to mask the identities of individual power plants:

  • Retirement requests must be made by September 1 but can be based on a conditional deactivation analysis. The submission would specify the conditions that are creating uncertainty, such as pending negotiations on fuel or labor contracts. The finalized deactivation plan would be required by December 1 unless the request is withdrawn.
  • PJM will post information on pending plant retirements in the first week of September but will do so using zonal aggregation rather than identifying individual generators. For each transmission zone, PJM will specify the amount of capacity scheduled to retire within one of the following ranges:
    • Less than 100 MW
    • 100 MW to 500 MW
    • 500 MW to 1000 MW
    • Total capacity to be retired will be specified if a zonal total exceeds 1,000 MW.

The revised proposal was approved by a 4.11-0.89 sector-weighted vote in the MRC, with support from six generators. Five generators voted no and three abstained. The Members Committee approved it 4.35-0.65.

John Horstmann, director of RTO affairs for Dayton Power & Light Co., supported the modified proposal, saying the changes made the proposal “a lot less onerous” for generation owner. But he said the earlier deadlines don’t apply to about 20,000 MW of demand response, energy efficiency and imported generation capacity, giving them a competitive advantage. “It’s a free option,” he said.

“We’re aware of that,” Bresler responded, saying PJM would consider the issue in the future.

Neal Fitch, representing NRG Energy, also praised PJM’s revisions to the proposal but said it was still an “overcorrection.”

Susan Bruce, representing the PJM Industrial Customer Coalition, spoke in support. “It’s an important step to help the market operate efficiently,” she said.

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VA OKs Dominion Virginia Power Generator

Virginia regulators last week approved Dominion Virginia Power’s request to build a 1,358 MW natural gas-fired generator near Lawrenceville in Brunswick County.

Dominion said it plans to start construction immediately on the $1.3 billion combined cycle plant, which is expected to go into commercial operation in the summer of 2016.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity for the project and a rate adjustment clause to recover construction costs. The commission also approved the construction of a 13.5-mile 500 kv transmission line to connect the generator to the grid.

The rate rider will generate $43.5 million in its first year, increasing the monthly bill of a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity by 81 cents.

Dominion said the plant, which is being added to serve load growth and replace retiring coal plants, will save $96 million in fuel costs in its first full year of operation.

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PJM Abandons Long-term Capacity Effort

PJM members Thursday abandoned a year-long effort to establish a long-term capacity product.

The Markets and Reliability Committee voted to strip development of a “Long-Term Capacity Auction or alternative multi-year mechanism” from the revised charter for the Capacity Senior Task Force.

“We feel that we’ve spent more than enough time on this issue,” said Bill Schofield, representing the PJM Public Power Coalition.

The committee initially rejected the proposed charter, which listed five issues, including two newest problem statements approved in May and June, by a 2.33-2.67 sector-weighted vote.

The committee then approved, by a 3.39-1.61 vote, the charter with the two new problem statements — regarding treatment of demand response as an operational resource and the unit-specific review process under the Minimum Offer Price Rule (MOPR) — but without the long-term capacity issue.

Schofield’s motion to strip the issue was seconded by Jason Barker, of Exelon, while representatives of Pepco and the Maryland Public Service Commission spoke in opposition.

“We think some sort of long-term capacity support is needed,” said Walter Hall, energy market advisor for the Maryland PSC. “We would read [removal] as PJM throwing up their hands.”

Gloria Godson, VP, Federal Regulatory Policy for Pepco Holdings Inc., urged members not to give up on the “thorny issue,” noting that officials in Maryland and New Jersey have attempted to create their own solutions because of PJM’s inability to solve the issue.

“I think the PJM marketplace can resolve that concern. PJM has a lot of smart people,” she said. “We can get a resolution to that issue.”

The task force was created in early 2012 to develop a long-term capacity auction. The issue charge approved by MRC set an August 1, 2012 deadline for filing a proposal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a long-term auction to provide adequate long-term revenue assurances to support entry of new capacity resources.

In April, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a tariff change resulting from the CSTF that provides new capacity resources with a mechanism to avoid clearing the capacity auction for one year if they require multi-year price assurance to be a viable project. (See Capacity Market: Three-year Price Guarantee for New Capacity.)

The task force said it would consider whether additional changes are needed after reviewing results of the May auction. While other proposals on the contentious issue have been discussed, none found enough support to win consensus.

In June and August, 2012, the MRC added two items — issues related to demand response providers capacity offers and aligning the capacity market auctions with the regional transmission expansion plan (RTEP) — to the task force’s assignments. In May, the group was tasked with considering revisions to standardize the unit specific review process in the Minimum Offer Price Rule (PJM Demand Response Providers Decry Scrutiny, “Freight Train” of Changes).

It was the latter two issues that led to last week’s charter revision. MRC’s decision to eliminate the task force’s original charge sparked a parliamentary debate with some members saying the committee would also have to vote to eliminate the problem statement. Dave Pratzon, of GT Power Group asked, “Is this a second bite at the problem statement apple?”

MRC secretary Dave Anders said that a vote on the problem statement was not needed.

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PJM Seeks to Curb Capacity Auction Speculation

Members voted Thursday to approve a problem statement to consider modifying the design of the Reliability Pricing Model to ensure physical delivery of resources that clear the capacity auction.

Jason Barker, of Exelon, proposed the inquiry, saying it was needed to prevent potential reliability issues because PJM is becoming increasingly reliant on proposed new generation to maintain its reserve margin. Some planned generators that cleared for delivery two years from now “haven’t broken ground yet,” he said.

“While there doesn’t appear to be any reliability threat imminently, we believe this issue is pressing,” he said.

Some players may be speculating without any intention of bringing physical capacity by bidding into the base auction and then buying replacement capacity at a discount in the interim auctions.  Barker said one goal of the inquiry would be to “parse speculation from legitimate covering” of shortfalls and increasing penalties for those who offer capacity resources but fail to produce them in the delivery year.

The problem statement was approved by a 4.15 to 0.85 vote but not before several members expressed concerns over the inquiry.

“We could potentially create more problems than we’re solving,” said Frank Francis, director of regulatory affairs for Brookfield Energy Marketing LP,

Gloria Godson, vice president federal regulatory policy for Pepco Holdings Inc., said her company has legitimate reasons for buying in the incremental auction. “How can you define intent?” she asked.

Dan Griffiths, of demand response aggregator Comverge, said his company doesn’t speculate but needs to use the incremental auction to respond to changes in market rules. “Every year the rules change. That forces us to reevaluate our needs.” “We don’t have regulatory certainty.”

Susan Bruce, an attorney representing the PJM Industrial Customer Coalition, said the initiative should not quash competition: “I want to make sure we are keeping the welcome mat out for new resources and that we don’t discriminate.”

Barker insisted, “It is not our intent to create barriers to competitive entry.”  Any increase in deficiency penalties would apply to all resources, he said.

PJM Executive Vice President for Markets Andy Ott said the issue would be assigned to either the Capacity Senior Task Force or the Market Implementation Committee.

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Governor Calls for Maryland RPS, EE Boost

Saying it has a “moral obligation” to do more to combat climate change, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley last week called on the state to get one-quarter of its electricity from renewable sources by 2022, a 25% increase from the current Renewable Portfolio Standard.

O’Malley also restated his support for a regional cap-and-trade program to cut carbon dioxide emissions and pledged to improve the state’s lagging energy efficiency programs.

The governor, who will leave office in 2015, wants to strengthen his environmental credentials as he prepares for a possible presidential run.

The state has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 8% since 2006. But current efforts are likely to result in only a 17% cut by 2020, short of its 25% reduction target.

Renewable Portfolio Standard

Electricity consumption is responsible for about 41% of the state’s emissions. Thus boosting the RPS goal to 25% would make up a large part of the gap in GHG reductions, O’Malley said.

Renewable power provides almost 8% of Maryland’s electricity, up from less than 6% in 2007. Increasing the state’s RPS targets — currently 18% by 2020 and 20% 2022 — would require the support of lawmakers, who doubled the state’s original RPS goal in 2008.

Doing so would be a boon for renewable generators both in the state and — because the state imports 28% of its electricity — elsewhere in PJM.

Energy Efficiency

The 2008 EmPOWER Maryland Energy Efficiency Act pledged to reduce Maryland’s per capita electricity consumption and peak load demand by 15% below 2007 levels by 2015. Thus far, peak electricity demand has declined by nearly 11% and per capita consumption is down by more than 9%.

More than 430,000 households and businesses have participated in EmPOWER programs, putting the state on track to exceed its 15% peak demand reduction goal. But it is likely to reach only a 14% reduction in per capita usage based on current policies. O’Malley said the state can improve its performance with lessons from states that are reducing consumption faster.

Cap-and-Trade

O’Malley also reiterated the state’s commitment to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). In February, Maryland and the eight other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states in RGGI pledged to lower their 2014 carbon dioxide emissions to 91 million tons and to reduce the cap by 2.5% annually between 2015 and 2020.

Carbon emissions from power plants subject to RGGI declined from 165 million tons to 92 million tons between 2008 and 2012.  Most of the reduction is the result of the 2008 recession, milder weather and the rise of natural gas at the expense of coal with the remainder coming from energy efficiency and renewable energy programs funded by auction revenues.

O’Malley’s support of RGGI is in contrast with that of New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, another potential presidential candidate, who pulled his state from the program in 2011, saying it was expensive and ineffective.

O’Malley’s call for an increase in RPS standards also contrasts with the policy of many Republicans. Twenty nine states and Washington, D.C. have RPS standards. In 2011 and 2012, at least 14 states considered 50 bills to lower or weaken RPS standards, five of which succeeded.