Dive Brief:
- The Data Center Coalition and the PJM Power Providers Group, or P3, on Friday asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to dismiss a complaint that asks the agency to find that the PJM Interconnection can deny large load interconnections if they threaten grid reliability.
- Separately, PJM on Friday urged FERC to reject Constellation Energy Generation’s request that the agency issue rules for colocating large loads at power plants in the grid operator’s footprint.
- In both cases, the protests said action by FERC would interfere with its ongoing consideration of the U.S. Department of Energy’s request that the agency develop standardized rules for connecting large loads to the transmission system.
Dive Insight:
The filings at FERC indicate the industry’s intense focus on developing pathways for bringing massive data centers online in ways that maintain grid reliability and protect other ratepayers from the costs of interconnecting large loads.
Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s market monitor, wants PJM to require data centers to supply new generating resources to meet their needs. The market monitor in late November filed a complaint at FERC asking the agency to declare that PJM has the authority to require that large new data centers wait in a queue to be added to the system if the regional transmission organization does not have adequate generation and transmission to reliably serve those facilities.
The market monitor’s complaint is flawed at multiple levels and it will add uncertainty to and slow down pending large load proceedings at FERC and PJM, making large load interconnections in PJM more challenging, the DCC and P3 said in a joint filing.
“Requiring parties — not to mention this Commission — to divert resources to briefing a complaint that must be dismissed is a distraction and a waste of time when the industry and the country can least afford it,” the trade groups said.
Also, the uncertainty caused by the complaint will hinder data center development, according to the DCC and P3.
In its response to Constellation’s Nov. 21 motion for expedited action, which asks FERC to resolve its pending investigation into PJM’s rules for colocating large loads, PJM asked FERC to dismiss the motion.
Establishing Constellation’s preferred colocation rules for PJM would preempt FERC’s consideration of national large load interconnection rules as well as the PJM’s board’s development of interconnection rules, according to the grid operator.
Earlier this year, PJM launched a fast-track stakeholder process to develop large load interconnection rules. After stakeholders failed to agree on those rules, PJM’s board said it plans to develop its own proposal for FERC review.
“The motion attempts to lock in its movant’s desired outcome while foreclosing possible solutions under consideration by PJM’s Board of Managers," the grid operator said.
PJM transmission owners, including utilities owned by Exelon, FirstEnergy and PPL Corp., urged FERC to ignore Constellation’s request, saying it would result in “affordability concerns, market uncertainty, reliability risks and a jurisdictional overreach” by the agency, according to a Monday filing at the commission.
Setting interconnection rules for PJM before addressing potential national rules DOE has called for “is a recipe for market uncertainty that could stifle rather than assist sensible forward movement on data center development, including investment delays in energy infrastructure needed to support increasing demand,” the transmission owners said.
