PSEG filed a Protest of PJM's compliance filing for their new planning process at FERC today.  I had to read it several times... and I'm still not sure what they're up to here, but at face value it makes them look like Sybil.  Overall, it's kind of like a pair of new shoes that rubs the wrong way, but you can't quite figure out what's causing the irritation.

First PSEG complains about PJM's new planning scenarios allowing decisions to be made within the mysterious "black box."  We've been complaining about PJM's mysterious "black box" for years, but because the old black box worked for PSEG, that was okay.  However, if PJM would now make black box decisions that include public policy considerations, that's not transparent enough for PSEG.

"The vague criteria of “the PJM’s engineering expertise and experience as the transmission planner and operator for the PJM region” does not provide sufficient clarity
regarding the decisional framework. PJM’s proposal is tantamount to black box decisionmaking. It fails to provide any decisional criteria that PJM would be obligated to follow in finalizing the RTEP before sending it to the Board for approval. It says nothing about how PJM will pick one scenario over another or whether such scenarios will be weighted based on any factors. As such, the issue of how PJM will be utilizing scenario planning in making RTEP decisions stands no clearer post compliance filing than before."

Next PSEG goes completely Sybil and complains that PJM puts no limits on how much an existing project could be modified and that such a modified project may no longer comply with market efficiency cost controls.  Yeah, I know... how can they say this with a straight face while simultaneously pushing their Susquehanna-Roseland white elephant??

"Further, the compliance filing puts no bounds on the extent to which an existing reliability or market efficiency project may be modified as a result of the sensitivity and scenario studies. Such an open-ended option puts at risk the cost control measures that
currently ensure that customers do not pay for projects that are neither economic nor “gold-plated” from a reliability standpoint. For example, under current rules, a market efficiency project must pass a cost benefit test in order to be included in the RTEP. Scenario planning may point to further project enhancements, but the compliance filing sets forth no requirement that such enhancements must also pass the same cost benefit
test. Without such a requirement, the fundamental cost controls that ensure customers do not pay for  uneconomic transmission upgrades would be lost."

PSEG puts the caboose on their crazy train by insisting that PJM align their RTEP assumptions with their RPM results.  PSEG (and PJM though the quote PSEG cited) insist that the RPM is working and responded perfectly to generation retirements, although the Market Monitor has been on the warpath about the new generation that cleared, saying that it skewed the market.  Now they're all fighting over who gets to wear the straight jacket!  PSEG says that "public policy" scenario assumptions that have not cleared the RPM should not be considered.  Okay... so let's apply that to S-R, shall we?  How about we retool that loser using the latest RPM results?

Is PSEG looking to dump their "gold plated reliability project" at this point in time?  C'mon PJM, step up here and be the hero.  Kill it, kill it, kill it!

Meanwhile, Atlantic Wind Connection made a filing complaining that PJM didn't include public policy scenario criteria in its compliance filing.  I guess they think they're about to be left at the alter...

I wonder if the FERC Commissioners can just send everyone to their rooms without supper?  Maybe some day we can make transmission decisions that are actually in the best interests of consumers, and not corporate bottom lines.  Call me a dreamer.

PJM spends a whole bunch of our money trying to manipulate their "markets" to be economic by expanding the transmission system to relieve economic "congestion."  Congestion simply means that "cheaper" power can't be transported to all points via the existing transmission system at certain peak load times.  That doesn't mean the lights are going to go out in those areas that can't import "cheaper" power, it simply means that they may have to crank up some more expensive generators closer to load. 

PJM has been whining for years about all the "congestion" between western PJM coal-fired generators and east coast load.  It was their basis for the failed $6B Project Mountaineer scheme.

See PJM's 2012 Market Efficiency Analysis Results presentation that is on the agenda for tomorrow's TEAC meeting.  As we've been telling you here and on The Power Line, PJM's "congestion" situation has changed dramatically since Project Mountaineer was proposed. 

Slide 3 tells us:

Significant drivers of congestion differences in 2011 and 2012 simulation results.

• Gas prices relative to coal much lower resulting in less coal units committed and less west to east transfers.
• Reactive upgrades on high voltage system led to significant increase in reactive transfer capability for future years.
• Decreased load forecast relative to previous years.
• Generation portfolio shifts to include more gas due to sustained lower gas prices, coal retirements and a net increase in natural gas generating capacity near load pockets.
• Emissions policies impact unit commitment/dispatch and shift to higher commitment of natural gas burning generation.

That's right... decreased load forecast on the east coast and new, cheaper gas generating capacity near east coast load pockets means less west to east (coal-fired) transfers, and that means Project Mountaineer is a big, fat, costly failure!  PATH might as well jump off that cliff they're perched on, and they can take MAPP with them (unless PJM re-purposes it as a east to west offshore wind transmission line).

As far as Susquehanna-Roseland goes, look at slides 4 & 5 where S-R and the Mt. Storm Doubs rebuild appear to alleviate "congestion."  While PJM pats themselves on the back for conquering the congestion monster, notice that some "congestion" simply moves to other areas.  Every change to the transmission system causes other changes.  They're never going to fix it all, just simply shift it among different consumers like a big electric bill fairy.

Now let's move on to slide 6 where we see "Constraints with at least $5 million Congestion Reduction and Upgrade(s) responsible for reduction."  Susquehanna-Roseland is credited with congestion reduction only twice in the table, and one of those instances is combined with reactive upgrades.  If we're generous here, we'll say S-R "saves" $32M per year in congestion costs for that line item.  The second reference to S-R credits it with saving $12M in "congestion" costs.  If we add those up, we've got $44M per year possible savings.  However, S-R is probably going to end up costing in the neighborhood of $200M per year when it's completed.  What the heck, PJM?  Thanks a lot for the "efficient" cleaning out of my wallet.

Abracadbra!  PJM's "efficient" markets have even more magic to perform for me!  That $44M in yearly "congestion" savings accrues only to the load pockets on the east coast (not me!), however S-R's $200M yearly cost is shared by all 61 million PJM consumers in the entire 13-state region (me included)!  Wow!  Sign me up!  It warms my heart to pay $156M to save other people $44M in "congestion" costs!  In fact, I'm now feeling so generous that I think I'll hop in the car, clean out my bank account, and then hand out money to all the winos hanging out on local street corners.  They'd probably spend my money more "efficiently" than PJM.

Oh, but wait, that's not all S-R will do for me.  It will also provide some illusory and hard to define "reliability."  $156M worth?  What kind of a rube do you think I am?

Won't someone pull the right lever and stop this out of control gravy train?  Please?

PJM has filed an answer to the complaint of Primary Power at FERC.  If you'll remember, Primary Power filed a complaint after PJM reassigned SVC projects Primary Power had spent 5 years and $5M developing to incumbent transmission owners Dominion and FirstEnergy.

PJM says they based their decision on three factors:

1.    The fact that the incumbents already owned land (their substations) on which to site the projects.

2.    The fact that the incumbents wouldn't need a CPCN because they would merely be "upgrading" existing transmission.

3.    Cost.

Wow!  That's it?  The crappy lawyering doesn't stop with the IOUs after all, but apparently also extends to RTOs as well.  1. & 2. are situations in which the incumbent will always prevail, effectively shutting the door on any independent projects and FERC's intent to encourage independent transmission ownership.  What a joke! 

But who said the projects won't need a CPCN or run into a siting buzzsaw in West Virginia if the incumbents construct them?  That's a lot of fallacious logic on PJM's part.  As I recall, somewhere in one of Primary Power's documents they said something about already having secured needed land, but I'm not going on a fishing expedition to find it.

And as far a 3. goes...  While Primary Power had a real cost estimate based on facts and figures, FirstEnergy and Dominion had back of the envelope guesses at cost.  PJM never did any independent cost evaluation to compare the alternatives.  Just like the PATH Project, the incumbent gets a free pass to underbid any competitors with estimates they pull out of thin air.  One of my favorite parts of PATH's fictitious cost estimate was demonstrated when the $1.8B project was reconfigured from twin 500kV lines from Bedington to Kemptown to a single 765kV line from a new  Welton Springs substation to Kemptown... and the $1.8B price tag remained exactly the same.  This proved that PATH's cost estimates were completely invented.

A plethora of parties have intervened in the Primary Power complaint at FERC.  Predictably, a bunch of PJM's favored incumbents protested the complaint and sided with PJM.  However, there was an equal number of independent transmission developers who intervened to support Primary Power's complaint.  If you want to browse through the filings, go here and enter Docket No. EL12-69.  Lots of good reading, but I'm not going to upload a whole bunch of them here.

The only party who can even claim some semblance of independence here is the Pennsylvania PUC, and guess who they sided with?  You'll have to read it to find out...

But what do I know about any of this... let's ask the PJM Magic 8 Ball if FERC is going to grab PJM by the scruff of its incumbent-lovin' neck and swat them with a rolled up newspaper...  take it away 8 Ball... "Outlook Good!"

According to PJM, its RPM capacity market is supposed to:

"...create long-term price signals to attract needed investments in reliability in the PJM region.

... stimulate investment both in maintaining existing generation and in encouraging the development of new sources of capacity – resources that include not just generating plants, but demand response and transmission facilities."

So, what is "capacity?"  Capacity is the amount of electricity a generator is capable of producing if it ran constantly.  However, generators don't run constantly, especially plants used only during peak demand.  But PJM must assure that enough capacity is available to meet that peak demand, therefore suppliers must purchase capacity, not just the electric power they may happen to use.  Capacity payments compensate generators for making capacity available, whether it ever actually produces a product that it gets paid for, or not.  A generator cannot afford to remain ready to dispatch if it never does, and never sells any product to produce an income. 

RPM auction prices are not "the cost of electricity," they just a small part of your total electric bill.  The larger part is the cost of the generation itself.  Different fuels (or no fuel in the case of renewables) and ways to produce electricity will produce different generation prices.  Coal is now more expensive than gas, therefore the cost of electricity produced from coal will be more expensive than electricity produced from gas, although both are receiving capacity payments to be available all the time.

PJM's markets are supposed to balance all this to ensure reliability -- an adequate supply of electricity at all times -- at the lowest possible cost.

However, it didn't quite work for New Jersey and Maryland, two states that pay some of the highest prices in the region because they are electricity importers.  Capacity prices were much higher than the rest of the region in those two states because they lacked adequate generation resources.  PJM's answer to that was to build billions of dollars of new transmission to import generation with cheaper capacity prices into those states.  New Jersey and Maryland waited years for PJM's capacity market to stimulate "development of new sources of capacity," but it never happened.  Therefore, New Jersey and Maryland decided to take matters into their own hands to stimulate "the development of new sources of capacity" in their own states.  Regulators in these states believe that local gas-fired generation will be a cheaper source of electricity for their consumers in the long run.  They wanted to be released from being held hostage by an ever-shrinking pool of dirty generators in western PJM and take control of their own electricity markets.

New Jersey implemented their LCAPP.

Maryland implemented their RFP process.

Both programs successfully stimulated proposals for new generation, which would mean that incumbent generators at the exporting end of all those new transmission lines would now have real competition.  The new generation proposals use currently low-priced gas for fuel.  The incumbents rely heavily on coal and some more expensive nukes, therefore their generation may no longer be economic to import to Maryland and New Jersey.  The incumbents have been screaming bloody murder and going to great lengths to try to halt Maryland and New Jersey's programs through the legal process.  PJM, being the cartel of incumbent generators that it is, sided with its most powerful members and joined in the state utility regulator beat down at FERC and in the courts.

In addition to the fuel cost disparity, PJM and the incumbent generators have another problem on their hands -- the cost of those new transmission lines needed to import their product to New Jersey and Maryland.  While the cost of a new generator will be paid for by those who use its electricity in New Jersey and Maryland, the cost of building new transmission lines is paid for by ALL electric consumers in PJM.  A consumer's share is dependent on their share of regional peak load, therefore consumers in areas far from these new transmission lines will end up paying a higher percentage of cost than those who are receiving the lower electricity price benefits that the transmission line supposedly provides. So, while clueless bloggers hyperventilate over the "subsidies" ratepayers will pay for New Jersey's new generation, they fail to consider the cost of the alternative to building new generation -- generation imports via new transmission lines that will be paid for by others who receive no benefit and end up costing consumers much more than "subsidized" new generation in the long run.

Maryland's project, and several of New Jersey's projects, cleared PJM's capacity auction last month, which was the hurdle they needed to overcome to get started.  The incumbent generators are completely beside themselves with worry that the captive market for their product is evaporating so quickly (never mind that decreased demand and fuel economics were already doing a nice job on their own).  Now the incumbent generators and their investors are on the war path to distort media understanding of a very complicated subject. More legal wrangling is absolutely guaranteed, along with some propaganda from the incumbent generators' front group, The Compete Coalition.

New Jersey regulators do a nice job of defending their LCAPP program in the clueless blog, however the blogger just doesn't understand the entire concept therefore, he doesn't understand them and remains a faithful lapdog for incumbent generators and their spinmeisters who want to throttle real competition in electric generation.

So, PJM waited until close of business (on a Friday) to release the results.  How predictable of them.

Anyhow, the headlines are that a record amount of new generation, demand response and energy efficiency cleared.

"The RPM auction procured a record amount of new generation in one year, 4,900 megawatts (MW). In addition, capacity imported from west of PJM increased about 8 percent from last year to 4,335 MW.

In addition to new generation, most of it natural gas-fired, the capacity auction also procured 14,833 MW of demand response, a 5 percent increase over last year, and energy efficiency, a 12 percent increase. The amount of demand response was also a record for PJM, as well as for renewable generation. Solar increased to 56 MW of solar -- a 22 percent increase over last year - and wind increased to 796 MW - a 15 percent increase."

The RTO base price was $136 per MW, with a higher price of $167 per MW in the mid-Atlantic region (Atlantic City Electric, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company, Delmarva Power, Jersey Central Power and Light Company (JCP&L), Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), PECO, Pennsylvania Electric Company (Penelec), Pepco, PPL Electric Utilities, Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) and Rockland Electric Company). 

FirstEnergy's northern Ohio territory was the big loser though, with a price of $357 per MW.  That's extra money that goes in FE's pocket and out of yours.  Remember when AEP's Mikey Morris had a big tantrum last year about coal plant closures and pumped millions into lobbying to try to change the rules?  Yeah, well FE's Tony the Trickster kept his mouth and wallet shut and got busy scheming to make it work for his company.  FE announced the early closure of a whole bunch of their coal plants, mostly in Ohio.  The closure of so much generation in one area won FE some profitable RMR contracts to keep certain plants open, as well as an "order" from PJM to build $1B of transmission improvements made necessary by the closures, AND a capacity price more than double the RTO base price.  It's like winning the utility lottery for FE's stockholders.  Unfortunately, that translates into higher electric bills for consumers because FE's gain is your pain.

Most of the new generation is gas-fired and located in the east, however nobody seems to be quite sure what cleared and what didn't.  Most company reps. weren't available for comment after 5:00 on Friday.  In the states of NJ and MD, where a battle against PJM and FERC has been taking place to build new generation, here's what information is available: 

"New Jersey power company NRG Energy Inc said its proposed New Jersey project did not clear the auction.

"We're disappointed but will continue to develop the project," said NRG spokesman David Gaier."

The rest of what I've got is unconfirmed rumor at this point, but supposedly MD's plant cleared, along with Dominion's Warren Co., VA plant.  In NJ the following plants probably cleared:  LS’s West Deptford plant, PSE&G's Sewaren, and Hess's Newark plant, one of the LCAPP projects.  Calpine's Garrison, DE project likely cleared as well.  Hopefully the press will have a chance to confirm this on Monday.

So, what does this indicate for the PATH Project?  I'm not going to speculate, since PJM's decisions about PATH have never been logical or based in reality.  It was always about what the parent companies wanted.  And where are those companies now?  They're playing dodge ball in Ohio.  Might as well ask the Magic 8 Ball... "Reply hazy, try again."  Well, there you have it.

Now that PJM's Market Monitor has withdrawn their complaint, we're supposed to see the results of PJM's Reliability Pricing Model auction today.  PJM has stated that they will be using the auction to re-evaluate the PATH Project and decide whether to abandon it, continue to hold it in "abeyance," or move forward with the project.

So, what is the RPM?  The American Public Power Association has a handy-dandy fact sheet that explains the RPM.

"In 2007, the PJM Interconnection (PJM) began implementing its “Reliability Pricing Model,” or “RPM” – a
funding device to provide extra money to power plant
owners to induce them to build new power plants and
keep old ones running. These are payments over and
above their sales of electricity in the wholesale power
market, also run by PJM."

Has the RPM been an effective tool to get new generation built?

"While the cost has been great, the results have been
slight. PJM claims that considerable capacity has been
secured through its RPM mechanism (over 42,000 MW from 2007 through the 2011 auction)—but these claims
are misleading at best. PJM includes in their figures upgrades of existing plants, withdrawn or canceled retirements, and capacity imports from other regions."

"Perhaps most significantly, very little of the $50 billion
so far for RPM is financing new generation capacity;
rather it is overwhelmingly going to existing generation capacity. More than 93 percent of the total revenue paid by customers has gone to the owners of existing power plants—coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil, and other existing capacity types. Only 1.8 percent of the RPM revenue so far has gone to new and “reactivated” generation resources."

How much has the RPM cost you?

"Since it began in 2007, RPM has cost customers in
PJM’s territory approximately $50 billion (through the
end of 2011). This works out to approximately $900
per man, woman, and child living in PJM’s 13-state
area. This cost, however, is not evenly distributed
throughout the region; customers in the eastern portion
of PJM have shouldered the main burden of this
cost. New Jersey’s portion alone is over $11 billion and
counting—or almost $1,300 per person living in New
Jersey today. For the RTO overall, in 2010 the RPM
added $140 per year to the average electric bill of a
homeowner, $1,000 for a retail store, and $15,000 for
an industrial facility."

At the PJM cartel, it's not about fair markets, it's about PIG -- Protection of Incumbent Generators.

Just how deep does the scheme to protect incumbent generators at PJM go?  You might be surprised!

PJM's "independent" Market Monitor filed a complaint at FERC earlier this month, seeking to make a certain state-sponsored generation project increase the price bid into PJM's RPM auction, or alternatively, allow all other bidders to re-work their prices.  The MM also asked that FERC delay the auction until this matter is settled.

At issue here are programs in the states of Maryland and New Jersey that have been put in place to encourage the development of new in-state generation, instead of continuing to rely on imported electricity (mostly produced from burning coal) from existing western generators which will be transported to the states via new high-voltage transmission lines hundreds of miles long.

PJM has been championing incumbent generators' strangle-hold over eastern markets at FERC, and recently had the rules changed as a means to prevent New Jersey and Maryland's generation projects from clearing the auction, which is a requirement for moving forward.

When "Project X" (okay, why are we pretending here?  we all know it's Maryland's project) made a bid that was low enough to clear, the IMM filed a complaint accusing them of not following the rules.  The IMM says:

"Selective use of favorable modeling assumptions also creates the potential to distort market outcomes because it can make a more expensive project appear to be cheaper. The result could be that the more expensive project clears in the RPM auction while the less expensive project does not clear. This would be a non-competitive outcome."

Let's talk about "fair" and "competitive," shall we, IMM?  If your incumbent generator PIGS were required to include the $6B cost of new transmission projects to transport their "cheap" electricity to eastern markets in the prices they bid into your auction, what would the true price of their electricity be?  If we're going to be truly fair, that's the only way to do it.

Instead, in PJM's unfair and uncompetitive electricity markets, the true cost of western generation is subsidized by all consumers in PJM via PJM's region-wide postage stamp cost allocation for transmission projects 500kV or over.  This enables PJM's incumbent generators to make artificially low bids into the RPM because new transmission necessary to get their generation to load on the east coast will be subsidized by ratepayers far from Maryland or New Jersey, with the beneficiaries of these transmission projects paying only a fraction of the cost of supplying them with electricity.  When new generation is built in Maryland or New Jersey, the entire cost of the project will be borne by that state's ratepayers.  When new transmission is built to import incumbent generators' electricity into the state, Maryland and New Jersey only pay a fraction of the cost.  This is not "fair" or "competitive."

PJM's ball of twine just keeps unraveling.  Now they've even screwed up their own auction with their continual kowtowing to the financial wants of certain incumbent utility conglomerates. What's next?  Are we going to see the incumbent generators' front group spring into action?  Spare us the posturing.  We aren't buying it.

Grab your tin foil hat and crank up the generator, Armageddon is nearly upon us!  In a complaint filed yesterday, Primary Power LLC asks FERC to restore ownership of its SVC projects to Primary Power no later than July 13, and issue an immediate order preventing FirstEnergy and Dominion from beginning construction of the two projects that they stole from Primary Power by exerting their incumbent power over the PJM cartel.

"Primary Power respectfully submits that the actions of PJM and the Incumbent Transmission Owners addressed in this Complaint raise grave concerns for the future of new competitive transmission development in the United States. This is essentially the “Armageddon scenario” in which PJM and the Incumbent Transmission Owners have acted in a concerted, and unduly discriminatory, manner to prevent a potential new entrant from building new cost-of-service transmission facilities in PJM, despite the fact that there is a Commission order directly on point telling PJM to designate Primary Power if any of the projects that it sponsored were included in the RTEP. If Primary Power cannot be designated to build its SVCs in this well documented proceeding that already is the subject of a Commission order, then who can? If PJM’s actions are allowed to stand, it will provide a roadmap for incumbent transmission owners across the United States on how to block entry by competitors, and it will send a chilling signal to independent transmission developers and investors that the Commission is not willing to intervene to enforce its open access requirements. This Complaint thus represents a critical test case for the Commission’s commitment to opening up the market for transmission development to competition, which, as the Commission found in Order No. 1000, can result in more efficient and cost-effective solutions for ratepayers."

At issue here are two projects that will supply reactive power to the grid, without the building of new transmission lines.  Primary Power spent 5 years and $5M developing these projects and shared them with PJM and its "stakeholders" during the approval process.  PJM initially approved the projects and assigned them to their sponsor, Primary Power, for construction.  However, after all the work of design, development and approval was completed, PJM incumbent bullies and PIGS Dominion and FirstEnergy decided they wanted to build the projects instead.  So, what did PJM do?  They reassigned the projects to their favored incumbents, of course, and told Primary Power to go suck wind. 

I'm sure this doesn't come as any surprise to PATH opponents, who have had a front row seat to PJM's favoritism of its incumbent bullies  for the past 4 years.  PJM's bald favoritism of certain companies flies in the face of even the most basic logic, and it's way past time for FERC to rein them in.  Primary Power is but one more example of PJM's collusion with a handful of power conglomerates to increase their profits with the building of unnecessary infrastructure, and to prevent competitive markets.  Primary Power gets quite dramatic in their filing, however it's all true and well deserved.  The continued skewing of PJM's markets to favor certain incumbents keeps the prices consumers pay for electricity high and fails to provide the consumers with state-of-the-art, least cost options for electric service.  If PJM's arbitrary and capricious decision in Primary Power is allowed to stand, Primary Power will go belly-up and it's going to be a cold day in hell before another new company proposes an innovative (or cheaper) solution to identified transmission needs.  The incumbents will have exactly what they desire, a lock on all new transmission projects, similar to their current stranglehold on the development of new generation.  This does not serve electric consumers!

It's time to clean house at PJM.  The dirty dealing could be peeled off in layers at this point, and it's starting to stink up the place.  Once they've cleaned all the stink out of PJM, FERC should prohibit lobbying of any kind at PJM in order to prevent a recurrence.  Lobbying has no place in a competitive electric market that benefits consumers.  And while FERC is at it, they need to prohibit lobbying in their own house as well.  Regulation should never be subject to lobbying as lobbying does nothing to further just and reasonable, nondiscriminatory rates.

Yesterday, attorneys for environmental groups, along with attorneys for the utilities and the BPU, presented arguments before a New Jersey Court of Appeals on the BPU's approval of the Susquehanna-Roseland transmission project.  The Court now has to decide whether to let the BPU's decision stand, or remand the case back to the BPU for further consideration or a whole new hearing.

I wonder what the BPU would do with the S-R line if it came back under their jurisdiction at this point in time?  I'm guessing it could get pretty interesting!

The article says that the arguments centered on whether S-R is still needed in light of lowered demand. 

"But neither PJM nor the BPU can rely on future events, attorney Marc Lasky told the judges in his arguments on behalf of PSE&G.

"PJM determined whether there was a need for some project to address reliability issues," he told the panel. "It was not PSE&G which decided on its own Roseland-Susquehanna was needed."

He said neither the regional operator nor the utility can "rely on wishes and hope. Does one put the reliability of the entire power grid at risk by wishes and hopes?"

PJM uses "wishes and hopes" to predict need for projects like S-R in the future, and how much of PJM's
"wishes and hopes" RTEP is based on old (or manufactured) data?  Would a new, honest evaluation show that other cheaper, faster solutions to any remaining violations may now be a more viable alternative to an increasingly expensive transmission over-build that relies on Project Mountaineer's 2005 "wishes and hopes" to increase the import of Ohio Valley coal-fired electric generation to the east coast by 5,000 MW?  The economic scenario upon which Project Mountaineer relied no longer exists.  Coal-fired generation is no longer "cheaper."  Are electric consumers in the PJM region truly being served by PJM's transmission planning process here?  I'm thinking not.

PSE&G probably thinks their project is "too big to fail" at this point in time.  After all, they have sprinkled over $70M of your money around to various groups and entities in order to silence any opposition to their project and grease certain strategic wheels. 

Here's a list of the publicly admitted "financial inducements" the utilities have agreed to pay to date:

$40M to The Nature Conservancy to perform "mitigation" in exchange for approval by the National Park Service of the destruction of The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and The Appalachian Trail.

$20M to the NJ Highlands Council in exchange for dropping their opposition to S-R.

A total somewhere in the neighborhood of $4M to various New Jersey towns for "mitigation" in exchange for the towns dropping their opposition to S-R.

$1.5M to the Montville Board of Education for "mitigation" of S-R's EMF on a school.

$1M to the Fredon School for "mitigation" of EMF at the school.

An "undisclosed amount" to the Saw Creek community in Pennsylvania in exchange for dropping their opposition to the project.

An unknown amount for strategic property purchases and other expenditures (estimated in the millions).

Totaling up just the known amounts, the utilities have already spent around $70M of their project's estimated $1B cost.  How much did the utilities budget for these kinds of "financial inducements" in their cost estimates?  When a cost estimate for S-R that includes this $70M of "inducements" is compared to other other alternatives, is S-R still the most cost effective solution?  What alternatives were even considered in the first place?

The cost of the S-R project, including all these "inducements," will be repaid to the utilities, along with a 12.9% yearly return, by the 60 million electric consumers in the 13-state PJM region.  The press persists in wrongly claiming that the utilities are paying these "inducements."  They're not.  The utility is merely "loaning" you the money for "your" transmission project now, and and will be well paid by you for doing so.  And the more they spend, the more they make!

But now, a court stands in their way.  They wouldn't be so bold as to try to "induce" a court, now would they?  I wonder how much something like that would cost?  Can someone contact John Grisham and let him know that we may have the plot of his next novel forming here?

It was beat up on PJM day today at the Platts Northeast Power Markets industry conference in New York.  In addition to being called "a complete failure," PJM's capacity market was also referred to as "PIG" by NJ BPU President Robert Hanna.

"The current [PJM] capacity market is skewed to incumbents and subject to manipulation by incumbents," he said.

Hanna said when he first took his post as head of the BPU -- he was appointed in December 2011 -- he was bewildered by all the acronyms used in the power sector, but he soon created his own for the RPM: PIG, which he said stands for Protection of Incumbent Generators.

"PIG rules," he said of the RPM..."

PJM Market Monitor Joseph Bowring sort of tried to defend PJM, but admitted, "it is gameable."

Read the complete article here.