PJM’s massive fail
Friday, Apr 26, 2024 - Posted by Rich Miller
* PJM Interconnection, which runs the power grid in all or parts of more than a dozen states, has been a fierce critic of Illinois’ Climate & Equitable Jobs Act. There are several others, but this is just one such story is from 2023…
CEJA includes a range of clean energy mandates and inducements, most significantly the phased elimination of coal and gas generation over two decades. New clean energy sources, augmented by existing nuclear plants, are supposed to fill the gap.
Trouble is, carbon-emitting plants are closing faster than wind and solar generators are coming online. According to PJM, the power grid it manages could lose 21% of its capacity in seven years. Meanwhile, power demand is expected to rise steadily as policies encouraging electrification of cars, home heating and other activities take hold.
New sources of clean power, however, are arriving too slowly to replace capacity lost to closures. Although regulatory pipelines are filled with proposed renewable plants, PJM notes that such proposals often fall through. Another problem is the intermittent output of plants reliant on wind and sunshine, which means it takes a lot more renewable capacity to replace a similar amount of traditional generation.
The upshot, according to PJM: “For the first time in recent history, PJM could face decreasing reserve margins should these trends continue.”
* Mentioned in some of those articles are claims from Illinoisans that PJM has been dragging its feet on approving power generation sources. The Tribune’s Nara Schoenberg took a closer look at those claims earlier this week…
Across the nation, the waitlists for large projects to connect to the grid — and deliver power to homes and businesses — have ballooned, leaving over 1,400 gigawatts of wind and solar power in limbo, enough to allow the United States to achieve 90% clean electricity. […]
And nowhere is the problem worse, according to a recent first-of-its-kind report, than in the PJM region, which spans Washington, D.C., and 13 states, in whole or in part, including northern Illinois. […]
While PJM points to 40 gigawatts of power that’s approved but awaiting construction, there were 290 gigawatts of power waiting to connect to the PJM grid at the end of 2023, up from 88 gigawatts in 2018, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a federally funded research center. […]
In the PJM region, the median time a new energy project had to wait before being allowed to connect to the grid rose to more than five years in 2022, up from just 20 months in 2005.
PJM effectively slammed on the brakes in 2022, with a decision, approved by regulators, that it would not review newer grid-connection requests — submitted after September 2021 — until early 2026, according to government documents and PJM reports.
That allowed PJM to focus on clearing the backlog of older requests but left newer projects with potential waits of up to four years — just to begin the review process. […]
A 2023 Natural Resources Defense Council report found that the PJM grid-connection process isn’t currently getting new wind and solar farms online fast enough to put Illinois on pace to meet its clean electricity goals. And a recent planning report from the Illinois Power Agency said grid-connection delays — along with supply chain issues and the amount of time needed for construction — create a “significant challenge” for ambitious state clean-electricity targets.
The Citizens Utility Board’s Consumers for a Better Grid manager told the Tribune that PJM “has unnecessarily set our transition to cleaner energy back by years.”
Go read the whole thing.
- Oklahoma - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 11:55 am:
Protecting their existing members’ interests, through action or inaction.
- James - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:04 pm:
Good for them. It’s a form of protest. Which I thought dems supported. CEJA was a massive over reaction to a problem is is real, but isn’t an “existential crisis” as is so often said.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:29 pm:
===It’s a form of protest. Which I thought dems supported===
You really are way out there, man.
The people who run that thing are supposed to preserve and maintain the grid. If they can’t or won’t do that, then they should be forced out.
- Friday Addams - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:47 pm:
Great report.
PJM shouldn’t be allowed to on one hand complain about potential lack of capacity while on the other hand be the reason for that potential lack of capacity.
- Tom S - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:47 pm:
There’s no arguing that CEJA has caused and will continue to cause the retirement of fossil fuel generating plants, therefore negatively affecting grid reliability. But it is also inarguable that PJM is terrible at getting new renewable resources online. As the Trib story points out, this is a problem for most grid operators, but PJM is by far the worst. It’s complicated and ultimately might be too expensive, but the State of illinois should consider pulling out of the regional grid organization and run it’s own system the way New York does. We’re one of the biggest exporters of generation in the country. Might be time for a new approach.
- Chicagonk - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:48 pm:
It seems that people are finally realizing just how much power demand there will be in the near future. There is a proposed bill in Congress called the BIG WIRES Act that would require FREC planning regions to be able to export at lest 30% of their peak load to neighboring regions by 2035. Politicians will definitely need to be actively involved in this process.
- Donnie Elgin - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:50 pm:
PJM’s mission and the requirements of CEJA are at odds, As wind and solar are not 24/7 sources…
” A majority of the power scheduled is from generating units that normally run 24 hours per day, seven days a week. This is called base load generation, typically nuclear and large coal-fired generators. Because the amount of electricity used changes during the day (following what is known as the load curve), using only base-load generation is not the most economical option. PJM uses generators with short start-up times (smaller, fast-starting gas, hydroelectric or oil-fired generators) and short minimum run times to meet electricity demand at peak usage times of the day.”
https://learn.pjm.com/three-priorities/keeping-the-lights-on/how-pjm-schedules-generation-to-meet-demand
- Excitable Boy - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 12:56 pm:
- PJM’s mission and the requirements of CEJA are at odds -
Then Illinois should find a different grid operator for this portion of the state.
- Cubs in '16 - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 1:00 pm:
===It’s a form of protest.===
As is certain law enforcement officers refusing to enforce laws they don’t agree with. Both are wrong. Protest is fine as a private citizen but not as an employee.
- sulla - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 1:47 pm:
“Then Illinois should find a different grid operator for this portion of the state.”
Complex issues are rarely solved by 144-character solutions.
- JLW - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 1:56 pm:
It is an impossible task to manage applications of tens of thousands of speculative projects — most of which never intend to be built. Its a vicious cycle. The line takes so long that developers put in projects that are just barely ideas and then the grid operator has to waste time studying not real projects that makes the wait get even longer.
- Friday Addams - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 2:16 pm:
JLW, that’s also a pretty good description of the legislative process and staff work.
- Excitable Boy - Friday, Apr 26, 24 @ 3:27 pm:
- It is an impossible task to manage applications of tens of thousands of speculative projects — most of which never intend to be built. -
No it isn’t, it happens all the time in the energy/construction world. If you have a graduated fee structure for the different steps of a design/review process you’ll quickly weed out the dreamers from the serious applicants, and it becomes easy to prioritize them.