FERC Filings
REQUEST FOR REHEARING ON PJM GRANDFATHERING PROCESS
Background
BACKGROUND
On March 31, 1999, PJM Interconnection filed an amendment to its Open Access Transmission Tariff and a new Schedule 6A to the Amended and Restated Operating Agreement to establish new procedures for the interconnection of new generating capacity in PJM. Pursuant to the Commission's Notice of Filing issued April 5, 1999, EPSA intervened, raising a number of concerns about PJM's proposed interconnection rules. EPSA argued, among other things, that any grandfathering procedures must include objective, non-discriminatory criteria for evaluating projects seeking a place in the existing queue.
On June 14, 1999, EPSA filed supplemental comments in response to action PJM had taken with respect to the queue while the case was pending for Commission decision. EPSA sought to make the Commission aware of PJM's decision to reorder its queue, to the detriment of EPSA members and other competitive generators, before the issuance of an order in this proceeding.
However, on June 17, 1999, the Commission issued an Order accepting PJM's proposed amendments to its open access tariff and operating agreement. In that Order, the Commission notes that Columbia Electric, EPSA, Liberty Electric, Sithe, Statoil, US Gen and MAPSA raised objections to PJM's proposed grandfathering procedures. Despite intense opposition from virtually every competitive generator active in PJM, the Commission concluded that PJM's proposal "reflects the outcome of a stakeholder process and the governance that the Commission approved." The Commission found that generators' concerns focused not on the criteria, but on how they would be applied. As EPSA pointed out in its June 14th comments, this is a meaningless distinction.