PJM Doles Out the Punishment

Well, isn't that fun?  PJM is punishing everyone because it's not getting its way.  Well, really Dominion's way, but PJM and its utility members are just different parts of the same animal.

Dominion finds itself mired in controversy over its Surry-Skiffes Creek 500kV transmission project in Virginia's tidewater region.  The project as proposed would make an aerial crossing of the James River quite near the historic Jamestown settlement.  The people say no.  The National Parks Conservation Association says no.  The National Trust for Historic Preservation says no.  The Army Corps of Engineers, who has to approve the project, isn't saying anything at all.  And we have stasis.

So, Dominion called in its trained gorilla, PJM, to terrorize the townsfolk and make them drop their opposition.  As if that kind of behavior ever works in a situation like this.  The people simply said "meh" to PJM's threats of rolling blackouts.

Now PJM has devised a way to punish them with higher electric rates.  And it has upped the ante by punishing everyone else in the PJM region with higher rates as well.  PJM has assigned cost responsibility for keeping generation units on the Virginia Peninsula running after they would have shut down not only to the folks on the Peninsula, but to every other zone in the PJM region.  That's right, electric customers in Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and other PJM states will pay a percentage of the cost of running the units that wanted to retire.  PJM says:

Based on PJM’s assessment of the contribution to the need for, and benefits expected to be derived from, the facilities, the zonal percentage cost allocation for 2017 (January 1, 2017 through April 15, 2017) is...

...followed by a table of allocation percentages.  I'm going to be paying 3.5%.   Meh.

Trade press RTO Insider says

Opposition to Va. Tx Line May Trigger Unintended Consequences

Sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Protesters of a 500-kV transmission line across the James River might soon learn that the hard way. PJM is responding to the delay in the project’s approval by instituting a multilayered strategy likely to hurt ratepayers in Virginia’s middle peninsula disproportionate to any perceived benefits that could come from blocking construction of the line.

At a series of committee meetings last week, PJM staff detailed several other changes for the area that will have consequences protesters likely haven’t imagined.

Like outrageous electric price spikes.

Really, PJM?  Whose interests do you serve again?  You think hitting senior citizens, and other folks who may just barely be scraping by, with surprise outrageous electric bills, and then blaming the opponents of a transmission line, is really going to work for you?

I thought PJM's purpose was:

Acting as a neutral, independent party, PJM operates a competitive wholesale electricity market and manages the high-voltage electricity grid to ensure reliability for more than 65 million people.

But it sure seems like PJM's purpose lately is to ram through the projects cooked up by its members without any room for compromise with the people who have to live with them.

Who would be hurt by a change to an underground/underwater project?  Oh, too expensive for the ratepayers, you say?  Well, what about your scheme to gouge ratepayers as punishment for opposing the project?  Won't that be too expensive?  Seems like the ratepayers are going to pay more either way, so why don't you just fall on your sword and cap the damages with a buried option?  At least that would come with a finite number, over the life of the project, instead of giving Grandma a nasty surprise she can't pay for.

And speaking of outrageous costs, PJM, who did you fool with your recent re-start of your Artificial Island project, after removing certain components to lower the overall cost?  I don't think it was ever about the amount... but the fact that the cost was allocated to people who would not benefit.  That hasn't changed.  Good luck with that!

Stop being stubborn, PJM.  You exist to serve the people, not the energy corporations.  It's getting harder and harder to build transmission, and do you know why?  Because the people aren't as easily fooled in this day and age of readily available, unfiltered information.  Badly conceived projects will no longer be tolerated.  So, get with the times, PJM, and recognize that compromise gets the job done.  Quicker.  Faster.  Cheaper.  Easier.  Now is not the time to act like a stubborn mule.

You know, this statement is completely ludicrous.

PJM works closely with stakeholders throughout the development of the RTEP. Stakeholder input is a key part of the PJM planning process. The Skiffes Creek project was reviewed in numerous open meetings of the PJM Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee where public comment was sought prior to approval of the project by the PJM Board. As part of that process, Dominion transmission staff provided PJM its own thorough and comprehensive analysis of system needs as well as potential solutions for PJM consideration. Most importantly however, the Dominion analysis, which itself was based on PJM’s initial determination of reliability criteria violations that needed to be addressed, was then independently validated by PJM and publicly vetted through the PJM stakeholder process prior to PJM recommending Board approval of the Skiffes Creek project.

Public comment was sought?  How did that happen, PJM?  Did you contact community leaders and ask for their comment?  Did you perhaps take out an ad in the local paper soliciting public comment about the project?  Did you go door-to-door and take a public poll?  Of course you didn't.  PJM doesn't interact with the public in any way while considering a transmission project.  It doesn't seek public comments... it simply accepts (and ignores) the comments of any "public" that may somehow happen to accidentally find their way into a PJM TEAC meeting.  The idea that PJM is a publicly accessible stakeholder-driven process is as bogus as it's ever been.  It's time to come out of the shadows, PJM, and interact with the scary public, instead of simply devising ways to punish them for defying you.