It was bound to happen. The Transource IEC has tanked and fallen below the benefit to cost threshold allowed by PJM. The sooner PJM admits this and abandons this project, the cheaper it's going to be for ratepayers. We're all on the hook for the cost of the project, so the sooner they quit spending money on it, the better off we'll be.
PJM is still trying to pretend that the IEC maintains an acceptable benefit/cost ratio, but it got the stink eye from someone who sees through all the baloney at a recent Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee meeting. Who would you rather believe? An independent member with no stake in the project, or PJM's assurances that we should blindly trust their magic math?
RTO Insider reports that PJM's analysis of the reconfigured Transource project was challenged by Sharon Segner, vice president of LS Power, at last week's TEAC.
PJM is still trying to pretend that the IEC maintains an acceptable benefit/cost ratio, but it got the stink eye from someone who sees through all the baloney at a recent Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee meeting. Who would you rather believe? An independent member with no stake in the project, or PJM's assurances that we should blindly trust their magic math?
RTO Insider reports that PJM's analysis of the reconfigured Transource project was challenged by Sharon Segner, vice president of LS Power, at last week's TEAC.
Transource Energy’s alternative configuration for its Independence Energy Connection project doesn’t pass PJM’s cost-benefit test, LS Power said last week.
Sharon Segner, vice president of LS Power, told the Transmission Expansion Advisory Committee on Thursday that her company’s review of the newly proposed path for the eastern segment of the project only carries a benefit-cost ratio of 1, far below PJM’s 1.25 threshold.
Segner said PJM’s base case used to calculate the ratio doesn’t consider the impact of a nearby project that would alleviate congestion on the Hunterstown-Lincoln 115-kV line. PJM plans to present both projects to the Board of Managers in December for inclusion in the Regional Transmission Expansion Plan, Dumitriu said.
PJM pretends the IEC project has a 1.6 to 1 benefit/cost ratio. But Segner says that a different project, a rebuild of the Hunterstown-Lincoln 115-kV, will eliminate a lot of the congestion that Transource is proposed to solve. Now that PJM will be seeking approval for Hunterstown from its Board, the congestion solved by the Hunterstown project needs to be subtracted from the IEC's benefits. Once that is done, the IEC no longer meets the 1.25 to 1 minimum ratio.
Both of these projects cannot relieve the same congestion, it's one or the other. How much cheaper would it be for ratepayers to only pay for the Hunterstown rebuild? The IEC is a dead dog that PJM just won't bury!
We no longer need the eastern leg of the IEC. Without it, do we really need the western leg of the IEC? Since PJM has refused to separate these two geographically diverse segments into stand-alone projects, chances are that the western leg cannot stand on its own. It was always an "add on" to fulfill a transmission operator's eager dream to be able to connect the parallel west to east transmission lines by running a north-south line between them. Now that the congestion issues in the east can be solved by a simple re-build, the western segment has no basis. We're spending an awful lot of money trying to make this connection, including rebuilds of other lines that would support this north-south connection.
It's all a house of cards! So, PJM will be presenting both the reconfigured IEC AND the Hunterstown-Lincoln rebuild to its board at an upcoming meeting and seeking approval for both.
Both of these projects cannot relieve the same congestion, it's one or the other. How much cheaper would it be for ratepayers to only pay for the Hunterstown rebuild? The IEC is a dead dog that PJM just won't bury!
We no longer need the eastern leg of the IEC. Without it, do we really need the western leg of the IEC? Since PJM has refused to separate these two geographically diverse segments into stand-alone projects, chances are that the western leg cannot stand on its own. It was always an "add on" to fulfill a transmission operator's eager dream to be able to connect the parallel west to east transmission lines by running a north-south line between them. Now that the congestion issues in the east can be solved by a simple re-build, the western segment has no basis. We're spending an awful lot of money trying to make this connection, including rebuilds of other lines that would support this north-south connection.
It's all a house of cards! So, PJM will be presenting both the reconfigured IEC AND the Hunterstown-Lincoln rebuild to its board at an upcoming meeting and seeking approval for both.
Meanwhile, PJM must update its RTEP to include the alternative plans for the IEC.
“We are going to give the board the complete picture of what’s going on,” said Ken Seiler, PJM’s vice president of planning. “There’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables, and we will make sure the board has the right information.”
Seiler added that “at some point,” the plans must move forward. “The area is congested and will be congested until we get some of these projects built,” he said.
Ya know, I seriously doubt that PJM will give its Board "the complete picture" when it makes it presentation in December. It wants to double count congestion relief benefits on each project. C'mon... it's one or the other, but not both. The PJM Board of Managers needs to start acting in the best interests of the ratepayers it works for, instead of its utility members.
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