The PJM Interconnection detailed in a Dec. 12 filing a new process for long-term planning of regional transmission facilities in compliance with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Order 1920, it said recently.
PJM’s proposed long-term planning process "will achieve the Final Rule’s goal to transition transmission planning processes toward a more proactive, long-term planning approach," it said.
Consistent with Order 1920, PJM said its proposed long-term planning approach relies on extensive collaboration with the PJM Region’s relevant state entities -– including during the development of the assumptions and scenarios that will be used to identify long-term transmission needs and potential transmission solutions, which will help PJM to proactively plan transmission that will:
• Maintain transmission system reliability.
• Provide economic benefits.
• Advance public policy objectives.
• Meet rising demand at reasonable costs.
• Enable more efficient new generation interconnection.
• Lead to actionable and timely transmission development.
The core elements of PJM’s proposed long-term planning approach are supported by the PJM Area Relevant State Agencies Committee. This committee was formed under the Organization of PJM States, Inc. to provide PJM, PJM’s stakeholders and the PJM Transmission Owners with the input necessary to comply with the Final Rule.
Among other elements, PJM said the proposed long-term planning approach:
- Will be conducted in an open and transparent manner, with more than a dozen points at which PJM will post data, solicit information, or otherwise engage with states and stakeholders
- Develops a Long-Term Regional Transmission Plan using a five-year planning cycle and based on a 20-year planning horizon
- Develops at least three plausible and diverse long-term scenarios that must account for factors within each of seven FERC-defined categories
- Applies a sensitivity to each scenario to ensure the plan accounts for extreme-weather-related events
- Holistically identifies a comprehensive set of long-term transmission needs across the PJM region, inclusive of reliability, public policy, market efficiency, generation deactivations and interconnection-related drivers
- Conducts competitive solicitation windows similar to those conducted pursuant to PJM’s existing Order 1000 regional transmission planning processes
- Mandates that developers offering proposals to develop regional transmission facilities in both near-term and long-term planning processes demonstrate that they have considered each of four Alternative Transmission Technologies (ATTs) as identified in the Final Rule
- Requires PJM to evaluate whether regional transmission facilities could address interconnection-related transmission needs
- Requires PJM to work with transmission owners to determine whether existing transmission facilities that a transmission owner might otherwise replace could instead be “right-sized” to more efficiently or cost-effectively address long-term transmission needs
- Identifies a holistic set of transmission facilities to address long-term transmission needs and relies on specified selection criteria to determine which transmission facilities PJM will recommend to the PJM Board of Managers for inclusion in PJM’s Regional Transmission Expansion Plan
- Gives states and third parties the opportunity to voluntarily fund any proposal that was not preliminarily selected, and for states to potentially opt out of cost allocation based on a mechanism that is still being developed in parallel with the PJM Transmission Owners’ compliance filing related to cost allocation
PJM emphasized in the filing that it has developed a long-term approach that holistically accounts for all transmission system needs, while accommodating 14 jurisdictions that have disparate public policy goals, requirements and transmission needs.
"PJM’s proposed long-Term Regional Transmission Planning Protocol relies on extensive engagement with states and stakeholders to identify long-term transmission needs and long-term transmission projects," it said.
