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April 8, 2025

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Groups Ask FERC to Axe Languishing Proposal to Cut Transmission Incentives

The Edison Electric Institute, GridWise Alliance and WIRES asked FERC on April 3 to end a proceeding that has been open for six years to consider cuts to transmission incentives (RM20-10). 

The commission opened the rulemaking in March 2020 and supplemented it a year later to propose eliminating the existing RTO membership transmission incentive for utilities that have been participating in an organized market for more than three years. The proposal would have focused project-specific incentives on the benefits to customers from transmission investment. 

“The commission’s current transmission incentives policy is working to the benefit of customers, transmission owners and the public interest,” they said in a joint filing. “With the rising demand for electricity, the commission’s existing transmission incentives policy has become even more essential.” 

A lot has changed since the rulemaking launch, they said, including a rapid and unforeseen return to demand growth because of large data centers, reshoring of industry and general electrification pressures. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an economic slowdown and uncertainties in the economic forecasts on which the industry relies. 

FERC also issued Orders 1920 and 1920-A, which are intended to identify considerable new transmission portfolios that might also introduce new risks to development because of the selection of larger and more complex projects, the groups argued. The world is also entering into a period of greater geopolitical tensions and competition, in which promoting domestic energy independence and security is considered a heightened priority. 

While the three trade groups want FERC to abandon the rulemaking, they argued even if the commission wants to go forward, it should take additional comments so parties can update the record for the changes over the past half decade. 

President Donald Trump has declared a national energy emergency, in which he emphasized the urgent need to revamp and expand the grid to meet growing demand and ensure reliable supply, they noted. 

“This infrastructure is not only essential for accommodating the increasing power demands from various sectors, but also for maintaining and enhancing the overall resilience and efficiency of the nation’s energy system, which itself underlies the broader economy,” they said. “A reliable, resilient and efficient energy delivery system is the foundation to providing cost-effective electric service to customers of all kinds, thereby aligning with the administration’s broader goals of fostering economic growth and energy security.” 

The incentives date back to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which acknowledged that increased levels of transmission infrastructure were needed to keep costs reasonable and the system reliable. FERC implemented them in 2006 with Order 679, which established tailored incentives to address risks and challenges associated with transmission development. 

“After nearly two decades, it is undeniable that the commission’s transmission incentives policy has provided the signal and support for transmission investments that ultimately benefit electric customers,” the groups said. As FERC considers changing the incentive policy, it has to weigh whether this would disrupt expectations, create uncertainty and possibly chill investment by eliminating rate treatments that cut risk and aid in lower financing cots to benefit consumers, they said. 

FERC’s proposed change would treat the RTO adder as an incentive to join an organized market, but the groups argued that was not Congress’ intent. 

“The commission is, ultimately, ‘a creature of statute and has only those authorities delegated to it by … Congress,’” they said. “Any action that would restrict eligibility for this incentive beyond the requirement that a transmission owner join an RTO is ultra vires [beyond its legal authority].” 

RTO membership requires TOs to transfer operational control of their facilities to the grid operators, which perform functions like planning, marketing and congestion management. The grid operators can require TOs to make investments in high-risk transmission projects, with the RTO adder helping to offset that risk. 

“Transmission owners in RTOs must also comply with a more expansive set of federal regulations, such as Order Nos. 719, 745, 841 and 2222, which significantly and disproportionally impact RTO regions,” the groups said. “Through these actions, the commission has fundamentally altered the business model, exposed certain future capital investments of transmission owners to competition, increased the potential that investments will be delayed and deprive customers of the benefits, and created significant uncertainty and related regulatory risk.” 

The RTO adder offsets risks incurred in delivering the benefits of RTO membership to customers such as access to cheaper power, efficient dispatch over a wide area and enhanced reliability, which together far outweigh the cost of the adder, they argued. 

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PJM TEAC Briefs: April 1, 2025

PJM Presents Scope Change to RTEP Projects

PJM presented a $97 million increase to a project included in the 2022 Regional Transmission Expansion Plan (RTEP) Window 3. The change would remove two 230-kV lines between the Mars substation and Sojourner and Shellhorn facilities and reroute them to terminate at the south side of Mars to avoid intersecting with new lines being planned. The original scope is to build a 500-kV line between Mars and Golden and a 230-kV line from Mars to Lockridge and terminating at Golden. The changes bring the total cost to $439.9 million.

Projects included in the 2022 RTEP Window 3 also have obviated the need for two prior projects totaling $7.5 million. The rebuilding of a line between Loudoun and Morrisville will supplant a $4.5 million project to rebuild a 1.3-mile segment of that facility. A $3 million project to replace breakers at the Ox 500-kV substation also is being canceled as the same work is included in baseline projects.

Supplemental Projects

FirstEnergy presented a pair of projects amounting to $37.6 million to replace two 500/138-kV transformers and disconnect switches at its Pruntytown Substation in the APS zone due to the assets nearing end of life and experiencing maintenance issues. The projects are in the conceptual phase with in-service dates of Dec. 13, 2030, and June 13, 2031.

The replacement of another aging 500/345-kV transformer at Wylie Ridge is expected to cost $20 million with a projected in-service date of Dec. 13, 2030. The transformer has increased hydrogen and ethylene readings, moisture buildup and low dielectric strength, according to FirstEnergy.

American Electric Power presented a $50.4 million project to build a new 345-kV substation, to be named Navistar, in the AEP zone to serve a new customer bringing 437 MW of load to the New Carlisle, Ind., area. The facility would be cut into the Dumont-New Prairie 345-kV double circuit lines and would be configured as a breaker and a half with 11 345-kV breakers and two bus ties to the customer. The project is in the scoping phase with a projected in-service date of March 15, 2027.

Dayton Power and Light presented a $480 million project to serve two new customers located near Jeffersonville and Wilmington, Ohio, by expanding several 345-kV substations and linking the Clinton, Fayette and Atlanta facilities with new 345-kV lines. The Fayette and Atlanta substations would be expanded to breaker-and-a-half configurations to accommodate a 25-mile double circuit between the two sites, as well as two customer feeds from Fayette.

The Clinton facility would be expanded with equipment for a new 27-mile line to Fayette and two 345-kV customer feeds. The project is in the conceptual phase with a projected in-service date in January 2031. The Jeffersonville load is expected to come online in September 2026 and ramp up to 1.5 GW of load by 2031, while the Wilmington customer is expected to come on in 2028 and grow to 500 MW.

PPL presented a $101 million project to expand the proposed Tresckow 230-kV substation to include a four-bay breaker and a half 69-kV yard to serve a customer expected to bring 300 MW of load to Hauto, Pa., in 2028. Four 230/69-kV transformers also would be installed, as well as two 69-kV double circuit lines connecting Tresckow to the Frac-Tres 69-kV No. 1 and No. 2 lines. The project is in the conceptual phase with a projected in-service date of May 30, 2028.

Duke presented a $49 million project to build a new 345-kV substation, to be named Gold Finch, along the Silver Grove-Red Bank 345-kV line to serve a new customer seeking to interconnect 300 MW in Clermont County, Ohio. Gold Finch would be configured as a ring bus with four 345-kV breakers and a control building. The project is in the scoping phase with an in-service date of June 1, 2028.

Dominion presented a $450 million project to upgrade several lines and transformers to address load drop and thermal violations on the Ladysmith CT-Fredericksburg and Ladysmith CT-Four Rivers 230-kV lines. The violations were identified in the 2025 do no harm analysis. The project is in the conceptual phase with an in-service date of July 1, 2029.

Phase 1 of the project, expected to be complete in January 2028, includes rebuilding 6.5 miles of the Summit DP-Fredericksburg Sub 230-kV line with higher capacity conductor; reconductoring 7.3 miles of the Ladysmith-Ladysmith CT line; adding two 500-kV capacitor banks to Ladysmith; and building a new 230-kV line running between Ladysmith, New Post, Lee’s Hill and Allman using a mix of new structure and vacant arms.

Phase 2 would go online in July 2029 to expand the Kraken 500-kV switching station to cut into the Summit DP-Fredericksburg Sub 230-kV line, the St. Johns-Four Rivers 230-kV line and the planned Ladysmith-Allman 230-kV line. The St. Johns-Four Rivers and Four Rivers-Elmont lines also would be rebuilt. The 115-kV lines from Fredericksburg-Four Rivers, Pinewood-Four Rivers, Four Rivers-Elmont, and Pinewood-N. Doswell lines would be “wrecked” and a new double circuit 230-kV line would be built from Kraken to Allman, along with a single circuit line from Kraken to Elmont.

Several additional Dominion projects would serve new service requests across its footprint. A $10.1 million project would construct a 230-kV ring bus with four breakers at its Trabue substation; two new 230-kV substations, Ruther Glen and Carmel Church, would be added to the Ladysmith CT-Four Rivers line for $87 million; and two new 230-kV substations, New Post and Lee’s Hill, would be built along the Fredericksburg-Ladysmith CT line for $43 million.

The Wabash Valley Power Alliance presented an $80 million project to construct a 15-mile, 345-kV line between AEP’s Elderberry substation and NIPSCO’s Stillwell substation. The line will be operated by MISO and is being submitted to PJM’s supplemental planning process to allow study coordination.

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PJM MIC Briefs: April 2, 2025

Stakeholders Narrowly Endorse Uplift Changes

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — The Market Implementation Committee endorsed a joint PJM and Independent Market Monitor proposal to rework how uplift and deviation charges are calculated for market sellers depending on how they respond to market signals and dispatch instructions. It passed with 53.3% support and is set to go for a first read at the Markets and Reliability Committee on May 21. (See “First Read on Proposal to Overhaul Uplift,” PJM MIC Briefs: March 5, 2025.) 

The changes would establish a new tracking ramp-limited MW desired (TRLD) metric to replace the three existing MW desired metrics used in calculating balancing operating reserve (BOR) credits and deviation charges. The TRLD would follow how a unit responds to instructions over time, rather than focusing on individual five-minute intervals as the ramp-limited desired, dispatch and locational marginal pricing-desired metrics do. 

PJM’s Lisa Morelli said that would address scenarios where a unit ignoring dispatch and keeping its output steady can avoid deviation charges. 

The TRLD would account for any dispatch instructions arising from ancillary services a market seller is responding to as well, such as regulation or sync reserve, allowing corresponding automatic exemptions from deviation to be eliminated. 

In past meetings, Morelli gave the example of a unit operating at 100 MW being dispatched down to 95 MW in accordance with its ramp rate. If that unit ignored the signal and stayed at 100 MW, it would not exceed the 10% margin that defines when a unit is deviating from dispatch under the status quo. Additionally, because dispatch is limited by ramp rates in the next interval, PJM could bring it down only to 95 MW in the following interval. 

The proposal also would rework the BOR credit formula by taking the lesser of real-time output or the TRLD and adjusting for ramp parameters for each interval, which Morelli said would simplify the equation. The start and end points for uplift eligibility would be revised to align with when a market seller’s commitment began and to run through either the end of that commitment or the unit’s minimum run time. 

Morelli said PJM’s goal is not to reduce uplift and the changes are likely to be a net benefit for many participants, as they also address scenarios where generators are undercompensated in some scenarios. 

If endorsed by the Members Committee in July, Morelli said PJM would aim to file tariff revisions at FERC in September. The changes would be implemented in two phases, starting with simulated results in market settlements reporting system (MSRS) reports before affecting actual settlements in late 2026 or early 2027.  

Responding to stakeholders questioning how PJM could respond to any gaps or unintended consequences identified during the soft launch, Morelli said the intention is to have enough detail in the tariff language to give direction to how the TRLD would function, with finer detail spelled out in the manuals. Any edge cases stakeholders are concerned about could be addressed by adjusting the manuals without needing to make additional FERC filings. The governing document language likely would empower PJM to adjust the TRLD if there are instances where SCED would dispatch a unit inconsistent with locational marginal pricing (LMP) or the unit’s offers. 

Committee Endorses Manual 11 Periodic Review

Stakeholders endorsed revisions to Manual 11: Energy & Ancillary Services Market Operations drafted through the document’s periodic review. The changes were deferred during the committee’s March 5 meeting after concerns were raised with the language designating data centers as plug load. (See “Periodic Review of Manual 11 Deferred,” PJM MIC Briefs: March 5, 2025.) 

PJM’s Joseph Tutino said the proposal was changed since the first read to include data centers and crypto mining as “business segment” load following feedback that plus load typically includes smaller devices, such as household appliances. He said the remaining changes are mainly typographical. 

PJM’s Maria Belenky told the committee in March that data centers are considered plug load for the purpose of curtailment service providers (CSPs) reporting load enrolled in demand response. 

First Reads on Manual Revisions

PJM presented a first read on revisions to Manuals 6, 11, 28 and 29 to conform with FERC’s May 2023 order accepting a PJM proposal on how it proceeds with settlement under a market suspension. PJM’s transmittal letter states that a market suspension never has occurred but could result from “extraordinary circumstances such as a failure of computer systems.” (See “Market Suspension,” PJM Market Implementation Committee Briefs: June 8, 2022.) 

The filing stated that the tariff has no way of determining energy and ancillary service prices when zonal dispatch rates cannot be calculated by software. Three different sets of rules are included for determining real-time prices when suspensions last less than six hours, between six and 24, or for longer. Shorter suspensions would use the average real-time prices for each hour prior to and following the outage; for moderate duration events, day-ahead prices would be used if available, otherwise real-time prices would be used; and for suspensions exceeding a day, an aggregate supply curve would be developed (ER23-1431).  

The proposed Manual 28 language would use actual output for calculating energy offers during real-time energy market suspensions. Lost opportunity costs (LOC) would not be included for suspensions longer than one day, and BOR charges would be allocated to real-time load plus exports if a suspension exceeds one hour. 

PJM also gave a first read on revisions to Manual 18 to conform with FERC orders granting several changes PJM sought to make to its capacity market in recent months (ER25-682, ER25-785, ER24-2995). 

The bulk of the changes arise from FERC’s Feb. 14 order granting a host of capacity market changes meant to address tightening supply and demand. The corresponding manual revisions would codify delayed Base Residual Auction (BRA) dates; modeling resources operating on reliability-must-run (RMR) agreements as capacity; continuing the use of a combustion turbine generator as the reference resource; and clarifying that market sellers do not hold “safe harbor” from claims of market power exercise by holding a categorical exemption from the requirement that all resources holding capacity interconnection rights (CIRs) must offer into the capacity market. (See FERC OKs Changes to PJM Capacity Market to Cushion Consumer Impacts.) 

It also includes the elimination of must-offer exemptions for intermittent, storage and hybrid resources, requiring market sellers to offer those units into capacity auctions starting with the 2026/27 BRA scheduled to be conducted in July. Stakeholders and intervenors argued the exemption artificially increased auction clearing prices, while many generation owners argued the existing and proposed market rules do not allow them to reflect the risk exempt resources would take on with a capacity obligation. 

The final change would be to memorialize the removal of the energy efficiency (EE) addback and eliminate the resource class outright following the 2025/26 delivery year. PJM argued to the commission that the addback was a holdover from a prior set of rules and no longer was needed, as EE was captured in its load forecast. Removing capacity status for EE was sought as the RTO argued that it could not be demonstrated that capacity market revenues were used to reduce load. (See PJM Asks FERC to Eliminate Energy Efficiency from Capacity Market.) 

Stakeholders Discuss Pseudo-tied Resources

The committee continued its discussions on how pseudo-tied generators are assigned to locational deliverability areas (LDA) for the purpose of determining clearing prices and the amount of local capacity PJM models as available within a zone. The subject was brought up by the North Carolina Electric Membership Corp. (NCEMC) to explore whether a load-serving entity (LSE) seeking to self-supply with pseudo-tied generation should receive the clearing price for an LDA or the RTO-wide clearing price, with the latter being the status quo. 

PJM’s Nebiat Tesfa said pseudo-tied resources are those that have an indirect connection to PJM, hold firm transmission service and are studied to ensure deliverability akin to internal resources. Those studies do not, however, determine whether any particular resource is deliverable to a specific LDA; to ensure the right to inject to an LDA, either incremental capacity transfer rights (ICTRs) or investment in qualifying transmission upgrades (QTUs) must be obtained. In some cases, modeling the flow from a pseudo-tied resource can use the reliability requirement for an LDA to increase, she said. 

PJM’s Tim Horger said the RTO’s priority going into the topic is ensuring there are no inconsistencies between internal and pseudo-tied resources when modeling congestion or transmission. 

In its own presentation, NCEMC said there were circumstances in the 2025/26 BRA where LSEs were exposed to price separation within their LDAs and were prevented from using their own resources adjacent to that zone and which they believe are electrically serving that load. It said analysis of dispatch data shows that those units are providing congestion management in Mid-Atlantic Dominion (MAD). 

Horger said PJM and stakeholders have to be careful when considering changes down the path of using distribution factor (DFAX) analysis to determine whether a given resource is helping a specific LDA. 

Carl Johnson, representing the PJM Public Power Coalition, said if resources are tied to an LDA, especially when it’s the same organization trying to serve load with its own resources, there should be a way of recognizing that the cost shouldn’t be different just because an LDA separates. 

PJM’s Jonathan Kern said the CETL study is agnostic about which capacity resource is supplying an LDA, so there’s going to be some association with the CETL and generation outside the LDA but not associated with any particular resource. 

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PJM OC Briefs: April 3, 2025

Stakeholders Endorse Manual Revisions

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. — The Operating Committee endorsed a pair of revisions to Manual 1: Control Center & Data Exchange Requirements and Manual 37: Reliability Coordination. 

The changes to Manual 1 would align with NERC standards IRO-010, TOP-003 and EOP-008 and include updating the Generation Scheduling Service table with generation periodic eDART and Cold Weather Checklist data requests. 

The periodic review of Manual 37 led to recommendations to update references throughout the document and remove the 3 p.m. posting deadline for next day reliability analyses. 

March Operating Metrics

PJM’s Marcus Smith presented the forecast error and operating metrics for March, which saw a 1.47% hourly forecast error and three days exceeding the 3% peak error benchmark. 

Warmer-than-expected temperatures March 4 led to load coming in lower than expected, pushing the peak error to 3.05%, while the hourly rate was 1.63%. March 6 saw cooler temperatures corresponding to peak loads being 4.14% lower than forecast. A similar dynamic was seen March 15, when the peak was 5.01% lower than forecast.  

Three shared reserve events, one high system voltage action, seven post-contingency local load relief warnings and six shortage cases were issued. Two of the shortage cases were on March 15 due to lines tripping. Four were on March 19 and were attributed to load increases and reduced reserves being available. 

Update on Regulation Market Design

PJM’s Damon Fereshetian presented an update on the implementation of PJM’s regulation market redesign, the first phase of which is set to go live Oct. 1, 2025. The second phase is scheduled to roll out a year later. (See “PJM Presents Regulation Market Rework,” PJM MRC/MC Briefs: Dec. 20, 2023.) 

Phase 1 includes consolidating the RegA and RegD signals into one bidirectional signal, shifting to 30-minute clearing from hourly, eliminating the accuracy and delay components of performance scoping to focus only on precision, and changes to opportunity costs and the regulation requirement. The RegD product provides fast response, while RegA is used for long deployments. 

Training on the changes is set to begin in May. Sandbox testing software will launch either that month or in June. PJM targets endorsement of manual language codifying the changes in August, with education sessions Aug. 12 and Sept. 5. 

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NJ Lawmakers Sound Energy Supply Alarm

New Jersey lawmakers pushed back on the state’s all-electricity, clean-energy strategy at a heated committee hearing March 28, urging an all-the-above approach as PJM faced criticism for failing to foresee a dramatic hike in demand that helped trigger a 20% rise in the average customer’s bill.

Facing predictions that electricity demand could rise by more than 60% by 2050, driven in part by the expected arrival of data centers, greater electric vehicle use and the state’s shift toward building electrification, lawmakers said the state needs to consider all options that could rapidly boost generation capacity. (See NJ Releases Electrification-focused Energy Master Plan.)

The turbulent, five-hour meeting convened by a Select Committee of Senators and the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee underscored the severity of the potential power shortfall facing New Jersey and its likely impact in further pushing up rates.

The two Democratic co-chairs of the meeting suggested that the state needs to look beyond Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) tight focus on renewable energy. During his seven years in office, Murphy has championed EVs, building electrification and a now largely stalled effort to create an offshore wind sector able to generate at least 11 GW.

“The storms are going to keep coming, and we need to look at renewable energies,” said Sen. Paul Sarlo (D), one of the co-chairs. “But we can’t just sit idle for the next five to seven years and not open our eyes to other concepts.”

That was the “loud and clear” message of the committee members, he said. He asked Christine Guhl-Sadovy, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and a Murphy appointee, if her agency would agree to “go forward with repurposing an existing plan for clean natural gas” while also pursuing renewable energy. Under prodding, she replied only that “we need to explore all options.”

Assemblymember Wayne DeAngelo (D), the second co-chair, said the state needs a “well diversified energy generation portfolio” that includes wind, battery storage, nuclear and natural gas. Plans to go from gas heating to heat pumps will require a major, potentially burdensome residential infrastructure upgrade, he said.

“Seventy-five percent of our homes in New Jersey are heated with natural gas. Sixty-five percent of our businesses are heated with natural gas,” he said. “And we haven’t even talked about our data centers, which are popping up all over the place.”

Republicans, who have long called for the state to adopt a broader portfolio, blamed Murphy’s policies for the state’s dilemma.

“I can’t help but get the impression today that we’re here because all of a sudden the rates went up, and people are like, ‘Wow!’ … like it wasn’t foreseen or couldn’t have been predicted,” Sen. Anthony M. Bucco (R) said. “Experts have said the same thing: that we’re just not going to be able to produce enough [electricity]. … We’ve all been saying that; you can’t completely electrify the state in such a short period of time.”

PJM Criticized for Perceived Flaws

But some of the most vigorous criticism was directed at PJM and its capacity market. In written testimony delivered at the hearing, Brian O. Lipman, director of New Jersey’s Division of Rate Counsel, said that “clearly PJM is the easiest target in the room, and not without reason.”

“PJM and its markets are a significant factor as to how we got to this problem,” he said. “Everyone saw the pending retirements of generators. The issue did not come to a head because PJM was able to mask the problem with excessive available generation. The system is broken. The capacity auctions are not doing their job. The generation queue is not doing its job.”

Legislators convened the hearing to address concerns about a 17 to 20% hike in the average electricity bill that will begin June 1 as a result of a basic generation service (BSG) auction in February.

Those BSG bid prices were shaped by PJM’s capacity market auction in July, which set capacity prices at record levels, about 10 times as high as the previous auction. The auction sets the wholesale prices in the region that help shape bids in the BPU’s auction. (See PJM Capacity Prices Spike 10-fold in 2025/26 Auction.)

BPU officials say they believe the bids were inflated by PJM demand forecasts that failed to properly include all the clean capacity expected to come online.

In a March 25 letter to PJM discussed at the hearing, Guhl-Sadovy said the BPU had “serious concerns” about PJM’s plan to reduce the “recognized capacity value of generation resources” in its upcoming auction because it used the same “flawed reliability modeling” that produced the high prices. She said PJM’s Independent Market Monitor calculated that the prices would have been half as high if not for those “flaws” that “severely undercounted available supply.”

“The cost of PJM’s mistakes to New Jersey consumers in the July 2024 capacity auction alone will be at least $800 million,” Guhl-Sadovy wrote. “PJM should therefore be working to ensure that no critical flaws remain in its capacity market design.”

Calculating Generator Capacity

PJM says the pending supply shortage is in part because of decarbonization efforts that have shut down older, fossil fuel-fired plants faster than new plants have come online. The RTO has long faced criticism about the slow pace of approvals for new generating sources, in particular renewables, although it says its new queue system will speed up the process.

Asim Haque, senior vice president for PJM, disputed the suggestion that the RTO should have anticipated the “major uptick in demand.” For years demand across the system was flat, but that changed recently because of data centers, electrification and onshoring of the U.S. manufacturing industry.

“The market is essentially holding a mirror and reflecting the reality of the supply-demand challenge,” he said. “And unfortunately, consumers are now seeing that on the bill side.

“If we’re all being very truthful with one another, nobody saw this coming,” he said. “We certainly saw the supply-demand imbalance sort of changing many years ago … but the demand increase, in particular, this uptick, is something that is a newer phenomenon.”

Addressing criticism of the RTO’s rules, Haque said PJM is constantly receiving stakeholder input, but it can’t change them without FERC approval.

One complication in trying to calculate supply is the variable output of some clean resources. A group of solar resources totaling 200,000 MW of capacity, for example, only results in about 20,000 MW of actual power because PJM calculates they only operate at about 10% of capacity, he said.

New Jersey’s Picture

In New Jersey, which imports 35% of its electricity, the RTO is predicting demand will increase by 2.8 to 4.7% over the next 10 years, Haque said. The state planned to meet that increase in large part through wind generation: Of the state’s 16,000 MW in PJM’s queue, about 12,000 MW are OSW, he said. “As we sit here right now, those projects have not materialized.”

Guhl-Sadovy said New Jersey has 79 projects in the PJM queue, mainly solar and storage that are “waiting for interconnection review to get connected to provide electricity.” She said clean energy projects could be among the fastest to start generating energy once approved, adding that the federal government disrupted that process by halting wind projects.

“The fact of the matter is that thousands of megawatts of generation were going to come online in New Jersey to support New Jersey and the PJM grid between 2029 and 2032,” she said.

Under questioning, Guhl-Sadovy acknowledged that her agency suspects that one reason for the RTO’s slow approval process of clean energy projects is that “PJM has made decisions that lean towards fossil fuel generation and the states that have large-scale fossil fuel generation.”

Data Center Reality?

Sen. Bob Smith (D) questioned the veracity of the claim that power-hungry data centers are driving the power imbalance. He said the U.S. Energy Information Administration has reported that the state’s electric load dropped from 75.4 TW to 71.1 TW in 2023.

“You mentioned the projected increase: Our history has not been out-of-the-box demand in New Jersey, but actually, at least recently, declining demand,” he said to Guhl-Sadovy. “Do you actually have data center AI in the queue at BPU? … How do we know any of this is true?”

He said PJM does not know if the proposed AI data centers are “real or phony-baloney” and called for the RTO’s policies to be investigated, saying the specter of data center demand is a “preemptive rate increase with no basis in fact.”

Guhl-Sadovy said the question is a “great point,” adding that the utilities have said they have interconnection requests from data centers and her agency is waiting for details.

Haque acknowledged that on the demand side, the industry is “legitimately struggling with sort of what is real on these data center forecasts.” One solution already adopted by some states is to put “gating criteria” on data centers that submit connection applications, requiring them to “put money down up front,” he said.

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CEC Report Shows High Ocean Energy Potential in Northern Calif., Less Down South

California has a significant amount of marine energy potential in the northern part of the state but much less in the south, a new California Energy Commission report has found. 

The report, a requirement of California Senate Bill 605, evaluated two forms of ocean energy: wave and tidal energy. Both are renewable energy resources that could provide support for intermittent renewable resources like wind and solar power, CEC staff said in an April 2 workshop on the subject.  

The report separated the state into three regions: Northern, Central and Southern California.  

Northern California, defined as the region from Bodega Bay north to the Oregon border, contains substantial areas of moderate to high wave energy within 6 miles of shore. But the region has a lower population than other parts of the California coast. 

Central California has a medium level of wave energy potential and the highest tidal energy potential, due to the large tidal inlets in the region, such as the San Francisco Bay and the San Pablo Bay. But the region has many constraints and conflicts to access its marine energy due to higher populations and ports.  

Southern California has low to no tidal energy potential due to the lack of large tidal inlets, yet has high energy demand and substantial energy infrastructure, the report says.  

Each of the three regions contains constraints, such as already being assigned as U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management wind lease areas or oil and gas planning and lease areas, or being far from onshore electrical infrastructure. 

Due to these constraints, a more realistic use of ocean energy could be for non-grid-connected applications, such as equipment in ports and harbors, marine aquaculture and scientific research equipment, the report says. The economic and societal barriers to entry are much lower in these application areas than on commercial-scale sites where developments must reach a certain size to compete economically with alternative power generation methods, the report says.  

Another possible approach to kickstarting ocean energy projects in California could be building them with offshore wind projects. The land and nearshore components of marine energy and wind energy operations could be used together, potentially reducing the overall spatial and visual impact of that supporting infrastructure, the report says.  

The report also outlined some other, more unusual, ways to use wave energy. One of those is to power underwater charging stations for autonomous vehicles.  

Next, the CEC will submit a summary report of these findings to the California legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom. The agency also plans to engage more key stakeholders in the process because the marine renewable energy industry “is still emerging with few commercial-scale projects in operation, so the public’s knowledge on these topics is limited,” the report says. 

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NEMA Report Forecasts 50% Electric Demand Growth by 2050

Electricity demand will grow by 50% over the next 25 years, according to a report released April 7 by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). 

Data center demand is expected to grow by 300% over the next 10 years, with most of that happening in ERCOT and PJM, the study says. That represents 32% of the 1,323 TWh of forecast growth through 2037, while electrification of transportation makes up 24%. 

For the 1,360 TWh between 2038 and 2050, transportation makes up 51% of the forecast, followed by industrial demand at 28%, while data centers represent just 1%. 

The overall projected growth works out to 2% per year and follows years of low load growth across most of the U.S. as energy efficiency offset new sources of demand, NEMA CEO Debra Phillips said on a call with reporters April 4. 

“This 50% growth that we’re looking at over the next 25 years is fairly remarkable, and our grid wasn’t designed really to meet that,” Phillips said. “So, we’re going to have to get creative around the technology and policy solutions that are going to help us meet the demand.” 

The new growth will require new generation, transmission and other infrastructure, but Phillips said the industry would need to do more to maintain reliability. 

“We’ve grown more efficient over time,” Phillips said. “It’s been key to us keeping that demand curve flat in recent years, and we’re going to continue to get better in that efficiency space. And so that, I think, is the real difference maker in our study versus others, is that we’re really leaning into that concept of efficiency, and our products really enable that.” 

NEMA represents manufacturers of the grid’s backbone infrastructure, including lighting, motors, wire and cable, she said. 

While demand is forecast to grow the fastest in PJM and ERCOT in the first half of the forecast, the shift to EVs in the second means the West and Northeast should see the highest rates of growth, Phillips said. Between now and 2050, electricity is expected to grow from 21% of final energy use to 32%. 

In terms of new generation, the report forecasts its capacity will grow by 43% to 1,761 GW nationally, with most of the growth in renewables and storage as fossil generation declines slightly. NEMA’s forecast has 409 GW of gas running by 2043, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration expects the gas fleet to total just 126 GW by 2050 and a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study has it falling to 189 GW by 2050. 

NEMA is releasing the study after President Donald Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs, which will impact manufacturing supply chains around the globe, include the group’s members. Since 2018, NEMA members have invested $185 billion in domestic manufacturing, and its goal of reshoring some industry aligns with Trump’s goals, Phillips said. 

“Another aspect of the trade world that the electrical industry finds itself in is an ecosystem that’s very connected in North America,” Phillips said. “So, trade with our Mexican and Canadian partners is really important.” 

The three largest North American countries have designed their entire power systems together, so NEMA values certainty and predictability around the trading rules and tariff rates between them, she added. 

Predictability is important to the future of that continental trading relationship, ABB Executive Vice President Michael Plaster told reporters on the NEMA call. 

“We have a switch gear plant in Mebane, N.C.,” Plaster said. “We have a switch gear plant in Mexico, and they make the same thing. And to be able to flex when there is crisis is really important, without having to wonder how much is it going to cost us to flex like that.” 

Predictability is important, but the tariffs are going to have cost implications because going back to a world where everything is made for domestic consumption in each country is not cost effective, S&C Electric CEO Anders Sjoelin said on the call. 

“There will be a cost adder,” Sjoelin said. “And we’re going through that because some of the components and parts that [go] into your product [are] hard to make yourself because [they’re] not part of your core. … I’m discussing that today with my team.” 

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NERC Board Approves Cold Weather Standard

NERC’s Board of Trustees on April 4 approved the ERO’s new cold weather reliability standard, bringing to a close a development that saw the board use its special authority to streamline the normal stakeholder process for the second time.

The board unanimously found that EOP-012-3 (Extreme cold weather preparedness and operations) is “just, reasonable, not unduly discriminatory or preferential, and in the public interest.” The standard will be submitted to FERC for final approval.

In her presentation to the board, Soo Jin Kim, NERC vice president of engineering and standards, reviewed the sometimes unorthodox process that brought EOP-012-3 to its final state. FERC kicked off the chain of events in June 2024 by approving the standard’s predecessor EOP-012-2 while ordering a set of “targeted modifications” to be completed by March 27.

NERC first approached the project through its normal standards development process, assigning the task to Project 2024-03 (Revisions to EOP-012-2). But the draft standards created by the team failed to meet the two-thirds, segment-weighted approval of stakeholders, required for passage, in two formal ballot rounds by December 2024, leaving the ERO’s management concerned about being able to satisfy FERC’s directive.

With the commission’s deadline looming, the board agreed in January to invoke Section 321 of NERC’s Rules of Procedure for the second time in five months. (See NERC Board Invokes Section 321 Authority for Cold Weather Standard.) The board ordered NERC’s Standards Committee to work with stakeholders and ERO staff to prepare a standard that satisfies FERC’s order, post it for a 45-day public comment period and then submit it to the board after revising it in response to stakeholder feedback. Additional formal ballots were not required under the board’s directive.

The SC formed a group of volunteers, including some members of the 2024-03 drafting team, to revise EOP-012-2. After completing their work, they posted a draft of EOP-012-3 for comment in January; the comment period ended March 12. This left only 15 days before the standard was due to FERC, and NERC formally requested the commission to extend its deadline to April 14, which FERC granted on March 20 (RD24-5). (See NERC: Cold Weather Standards Now Expected in April.)

Kim identified several themes in industry responses to the draft, which the SC addressed in the final standard. First, the team revised the proposed definition of “generator cold weather constraint” — a condition that precludes generator owners from implementing freeze protection measures — to “clarify the scope of … measures that may be precluded by a constraint.” In addition, the final standard will require GOs submitting constraint declarations to add an attestation signed by a company officer.

Commenters also raised concerns about the standard’s requirement that corrective action plans (CAPs) addressing cold weather reliability events be implemented by the start of the next winter season after the event — a mandate that stakeholders said could place unfair pressure on utilities that experienced events late in the season. Kim said the team responded to this concern by clarifying the criteria for “early season CAPs,” without specifying what changes were implemented.

Kim added that the final standard provides for a “compliance abeyance period.” This measure provides a two-year window during which regional entities will not take action against utilities for failing to comply with requirements concerning generating units’ extreme cold weather temperature — defined as the lowest 0.2 percentile of a unit’s winter temperatures since 2000 — as long as the utility is “acting in good faith to comply with the standard in accordance with the implementation plan.”

Board Chair Suzanne Keenan noted this will be the first standard to have such an abeyance period, one of “a lot of firsts” that the project entailed. These include the first time requesting an extension from FERC, the first time approving a standard without a successful stakeholder ballot and the first time holding an open board meeting on “such a difficult topic” without a closed meeting beforehand.

Keenan emphasized that “the board doesn’t take lightly the action before us,” adding that “if this were easy, we wouldn’t be here now.” She also referred to NERC’s Modernization of Standards Processes and Procedures Task Force, which the board created at its previous meeting in February, and expressed hope that the group could “reimagine how we get [standards] done to avoid this in the future.”

Trustee Sue Kelly, the board’s liaison to the SC, praised the committee’s work under pressure, first to create the new standard and then to revise it after the comment period. She said NERC was “in a much better place than we otherwise would have been” without the committee’s work.

Trustee Ken DeFontes, who was chair both times the board invoked Section 321, echoed Keenan’s thanks for the SC’s efforts while reiterating his belief that the special action was necessary to satisfy the commission’s order.

“It’s clear to me that we have been as reasonable and thoughtful as we can possibly be to make sure that we’ve considered all the feedback from the stakeholders, and I think we have found the right place to balance those concerns while still assuring that we have a standard that will address the risks that we understand are real,” DeFontes said.

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FERC Leaders Focused on Stability amid Political Shifts

LA JOLLA, Calif. — FERC Chair Mark Christie and Commissioner Judy Chang downplayed the current political environment’s impact on the agency, saying during an industry meeting April 3 that its role is to follow the law and ensure the fairness of procedures.

Stability comes from the commission’s dedication to following the Federal Power Act and the Natural Gas Act, Christie said in a conversation with New Mexico Public Regulation Commissioner Gabriel Aguilera during the spring meeting of the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation and Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body.

FERC’s decisions affect whether investors will put up “literally hundreds of billions of dollars into the assets that we need to invest in,” Christie said. “There has to be a certainty and a stability before those investors are going to put up that kind of money to build the assets that we all know we need.”

Christie also stressed that the commission will adhere to its ex parte rules.

“We’re going to follow the procedural rules. There’s not going to be any violation of our ex parte communications, and we’re going to follow the statutes that apply to each case, whether it’s Federal Power Act; whether it’s Natural Gas Act,” Christie said. “If you’re following the statutes and your procedural rules, that’s where credibility comes from. And we are.”

In a separate panel moderated by Washington Utilities and Transportation Commissioner Milt Doumit, Chang said the new administration will not change FERC’s mission of “keeping the lights on.”

However, she noted “nervousness” around voluntary retirements spurred by the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer to the entire federal workforce in January.

“There are some uncertainties, but I think we’re keeping … our eye on the road,” Chang said.

Markets in the West

The two FERC commissioners also praised efforts to create day-ahead markets in the West in reference to SPP’s Markets+ and CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Markets. Both offered insights into how the industry can navigate issues between the two market options, such as seams.

Chang suggested the West look to MISO and SPP, which have created operating agreements and task forces to navigate seams, she said. She urged stakeholders to avoid imposing barriers to “allow the efficient exchanges to occur and trades to occur.”

Washington Utilities and Transportation Commissioner Milt Doumit and FERC Commissioner Judy Chang | © RTO Insider

“Avoid locking in historical patterns, because when you start creating new markets, things are going to change, or policies might change, or generation fleets mix might change, or transmission buildout will change the flow,” Chang said. “Try to be flexible to future changes. And that includes, really, all kinds of parameters around market design.”

Christie emphasized the importance of state regulators collaborating to tackle challenges.

“You can have the bigger meetings where 90% of the people there are not state regulators, and they’re there with their own interest,” Christie said. “And that’s fine, as long as you, as state regulators, set aside time where you all go in a room and you talk to each other about how you’re going to work through these challenging issues.”

Chang’s Goals

Chang, who joined FERC in July 2024, laid out her goals before her term expires in June 2029.

The West’s market evolution is a priority, with Chang saying she wants “to understand it; to help you develop what you need for your customers.”

Other focus areas include resource adequacy, the interconnection queue and transmission planning.

“I think the rules in [Order] 1920 are very solid,” Chang said. “I would love to see parts of the country, maybe the whole country, implement better transmission planning and cost allocation and get some very needed transmission at least developed, maybe not in my term, but at least prepared for in the future.”

Chang also said she “would love to see more advanced technologies be implemented as part of transmission buildout, because I think we have an obligation to serve customers in the most efficient way, and we can squeeze more out of existing infrastructure and new infrastructure.”

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EDAM Congestion Debate Builds Even as CAISO Moves to Address Issue

LA JOLLA, Calif. — The dispute over how CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market will allocate congestion revenues to market participants might induce a sense of déjà vu among Western electricity sector stakeholders who have closely followed the development of the region’s day-ahead markets.

Last year, a January deep freeze that put much of the Northwest on the brink of rolling blackouts set off a heated debate between supporters of EDAM and SPP’s Markets+. That dispute centered on how CAISO allocated the revenues it collected from the transmission congestion stemming from the weather event. That controversy became a kind of proxy for the competition between the two markets. (See NW Cold Snap Dispute Reflects Divisions over Western Markets.)

A similar development appears to be playing out this spring, even as most Western utilities already have settled on which day-ahead market they will join — although a handful remain uncommitted. The dispute is over the rules by which EDAM will allocate congestion revenues when a constraint in one EDAM balancing authority area produces “parallel” — or loop — flows that result in congestion in a neighboring BAA.

The issue came to light after PacifiCorp in January filed a revised Open Access Transmission Tariff with FERC to reflect the utility’s participation in EDAM, scheduled to begin in 2026.

Shortly after the OATT filing, Vancouver, British Columbia-based energy trader Powerex — a PacifiCorp transmission customer that has committed to joining SPP’s Markets+ — released a paper pointing to what it called a “design flaw” in EDAM because the market’s rules do not offer “a financial hedge that returns the day-ahead congestion charges on a delivery path back to the entities with firm transmission rights on that delivery path” — as required by FERC. (See Powerex Paper Sparks Dispute over EDAM ‘Design Flaw’.)

CAISO and PacifiCorp initially responded sharply, calling Powerex’s paper “misinformed and inflammatory,” but the ISO in March kicked off an “expedited” stakeholder initiative to address the issue after other Western entities filed similar complaints in the FERC docket for the OATT (ER25-951).

The issue was the key agenda item at an April 2 in-person meeting of the Western Energy Markets Body of State Regulators (BOSR), held in La Jolla at the site of the joint spring conference of the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation and Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (CREPC-WIRAB).

Speaking to the BOSR, Anna McKenna, CAISO vice president of market design and analysis, emphasized that while the ISO is moving quickly to address stakeholder concerns, it disputes the contention that the market’s existing congestion revenue framework is inherently flawed. (See Fast-paced Effort will Address EDAM Congestion Revenue Issue.)

“I know that there’s been a perception out there that, because we started an initiative, we’re admitting that there’s some fundamental flaw in the EDAM design. We wholeheartedly disagree,” McKenna said.

McKenna said the new initiative is “revisiting” what CAISO thought was just and reasonable in light of FERC’s approval of the EDAM tariff in December 2023.

“And, by the way, what we have in EDAM is something that’s been in place for 10 years now under [CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market]. … So there was really no change in how that congestion revenue is going to be allocated in EIM and EDAM,” although there will be different implications for the day-ahead market, she noted.

MISO Monitor Weighs in

McKenna delivered her presentation a few days after a new twist in the dispute, when Powerex on March 28 filed additional comments with FERC in the PacifiCorp OATT docket.

The comments included expert testimony from David Patton, president of Potomac Economics, which serves as the Independent Market Monitor for MISO and ERCOT and provides monitoring services for ISO-NE and NYISO.

“All other organized markets provide financial transmission rights that correspond to all of the constraints that are priced in the markets’ LMPs, which is the basis for the congestion costs charged to customers,” Patton wrote. “In sharp contrast, PacifiCorp proposes to only provide a hedge for congestion associated with constraints on PacifiCorp’s system, and no hedge for congestion costs associated with all other constraints in EDAM.”

Patton contended PacifiCorp “has proposed an unprecedented and ultimately unreasonable treatment of its firm transmission service and the customers that have purchased it.” He said the proposal is “clearly inferior to both the financial transmission rights RTOs and ISOs provide their firm transmission customers and to the physical scheduling rights firm transmission customers receive in non-market areas … under the pro forma OATT.”

Patton warned that the lack of “effective” congestion hedges could increase long-term grid reliability risks by deterring investments by “risk-averse market participants.” He said PacifiCorp “could meet the requirement for transmission service that is consistent with or superior to the pro forma OATT, despite the incomplete nature of the current EDAM design,” by submitting a revised OATT that preserves the ability of the utility’s customers to opt out of EDAM “and schedule the use of their firm transmission service ahead” of that market.

In an email to RTO Insider, PacifiCorp spokesperson Omar Granados said the utility “is proceeding toward the implementation of the approved EDAM design in 2026 and continuing to work with market participants and other stakeholders to implement those design features to maximize benefits for participants and support grid reliability. PacifiCorp will engage with stakeholders in the pending FERC proceeding and the CAISO stakeholder process on congestion to address any questions or concerns.”

Patton’s testimony also criticized EDAM itself, saying “the design of EDAM substantially deviates from the design of other day-ahead markets in how congestion costs are collected and distributed back to the EDAM participants.”

“It is highly problematic and somewhat misguided to allocate congestion revenue based on where the transmission facility is located rather than based on the sources and sinks where the congestion revenues are actually collected,” he added.

But Patton also acknowledged that EDAM is not like the other markets he monitors because it does not include other elements of an RTO, such as consolidation of balancing authority areas and transmission service providers.

At the BOSR meeting, McKenna said EDAM provides a “unique” design in that it does not force transmission owners to turn over control of their lines to the market operator, allowing each to determine how to spread congestion revenue allocations among transmission users.

She also argued that implementing a financial instrument such as congestion revenue rights would not solve the problem of which BAA receives revenues stemming from congestion caused by parallel flows.

McKenna expressed confidence in CAISO’s ability to address the issue.

“We’re not unique in that every RTO and every ISO has had to make many filings that impact its markets over the years. That is the nature of markets: learn, react, form, and you proactively address things,” she said.

“I think it’s a good point you made: that markets are not static and continue to evolve as we identify potential improvements or changes — and that’s good, because we get to keep our jobs,” New Mexico Public Regulation Commissioner and BOSR Chair Gabriel Aguilera said.

Henrik Nilsson contributed to reporting in this article.