PJM

Life Along the Potomac

What federal regulators should do to ensure security, reliability, and cleaner air in our nation’s capital.

The District of Columbia Public Service Commission successfully has used two little known provisions in the Federal Power Act (FPA) to prevent an aging generating plant crucial to the national capital region’s reliability from being abruptly shut down by Virginia’s environmental regulators. In the end, the immediate threat to the region’s reliability was obviated while the environmental concerns associated with the plant were not ignored. The action resulted in a model for how federal energy regulators and environmental regulators can address similar problems in the future.

Mirror, Mirror

A rash of rate hikes around the country could have utilities facing a public-relations disaster.

Constellation Energy CEO Mayo Shattuck has complained that he and the utility have unfairly been demonized in the public and in the press. In one interview with a Maryland paper, Shattuck showed distress over the verbal abuse his executives had received from angry ratepayers. And who can blame him?

One RTO, Two Systems

By trying to placate regulated states—letting utilities “opt out” from its capacity market—PJM finds its RPM idea under fire.

While the PJM Interconnection has made no major changes to its prototype capacity market since it proposed the idea a year ago in August, and though it has won a tacit OK from federal regulators for many of the plan’s key elements, don’t expect to see a slam dunk when the time comes for a final review of the controversial idea, known as the Reliability Pricing Model.

Letter to the Editor

Joseph Bowring, PJM Market Monitor: ”Pondering PJM's Energy Price Run-Up” by Howard Spinner of the Virginia State Corporation Commission staff raises the question of whether the observed increase in PJM average system prices in the second half of 2005 was the result of fuel-price increases and increased loads, or the result of market power. The results reported in the Spinner article are incorrect; see PJM Energy Prices—2005: Response to Howard M. Spinner Paper.”

Calling EPACT's Bluff

How Congress opened another can of worms with its call for regional joint boards to study power-plant dispatch.

Did Congress really invite the industry to re-examine the concept of economic dispatch, as practiced by the regional grid operators and RTOs, through market bids, day-ahead markets, a centralized auction, and a uniform market-clearing price? Perhaps not, but skeptics of RTO practice have called the bluff, if that’s what it was.

Kicked Off and On Schedule

Cal-ISO files a new market design, but has it traded efficiency for software?

Eyeing a launch date of November 2007, Cal-ISO at last has come forward with plans for revamping its widely disparaged wholesale market design. The formal proposal, known as the MRTU (Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade), was filed this past February at FERC.

Utilities Get "Defense"-ive

How cutting-edge military technologies can help solve some of the industry’s most critical issues.

Whether it’s an aging workforce, the impact of competitive markets, or an outdated transmission system, today’s energy and utility organizations are facing a whole new set of challenges. What many people in the industry don’t realize is that the utility sector is not the first to face these kinds of issues. The U.S. military is dealing with, or has dealt with, a strikingly similar set of problems in recent years.

Pondering PJM's Energy Price Run-Up

Does inappropriate market power explain the increase during late 2005?

Beginning around June 2005, prices in the PJM day-ahead locational market pricing energy markets and real-time pricing markets rose precipitously. Based on publicly available information, our study concludes that these price increases are not fully explained by higher loads and higher commodity fuel prices. Could higher energy prices be the result of the inappropriate exercise of market power rather than the appropriate result of market dynamics operating in the presence of scarcity?

Barriers to Transmission Superhighways

History teaches us that the most successful American businesses emerge from the crucible of competition.

Important challenges still confront the development of a coherent strategy to create an efficient modern transmission system. Assuming FERC and Congress are earnest about creating a 21st century grid, new ideas, projects, and technologies need to emerge.

East Vs. West: Growing the Grid

The models and motives behind tomorrow’s transmission expansion.

Major transmission projects based on two distinct models are showing signs of life. What can these projects teach us about future transmission investment?