PJM Urges FERC to Dismiss Mon Power’s $145M Claim — SkimNews
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- PJM urged FERC on Monday to dismiss Mon Power’s Oct. 6 complaint seeking $145 million for Winter Storm Fern losses, calling the case “a fishing expedition without substance.”
- PJM argued that downed power lines on Mon Power’s system were the “most obvious and significant” driver of the locational marginal price differences the utility faced during the storm.
- Mon Power said PJM advance-scheduled more than 50,000 MW a day of gas-fired units from Jan. 26 through Jan. 31 and more than 45,000 MW on Feb. 1, while dispatching Mon Power’s cheaper coal units at or near economic minimum.
- Mon Power argued that PJM’s advance scheduling was unnecessary and harmful absent proof that gas units would likely have failed under normal market rules, and called the $145 million loss its largest net expense in its history.
- PJM Power Providers Group and the Electric Power Supply Association told FERC that retroactive reruns, resettlements or reallocations would violate market finality, undermine investment certainty and conflict with longstanding Commission precedent.
- Vistra said PJM’s extensive advance commitments can distort markets, increase customer costs and weaken price signals, but opposed resettling Winter Storm Fern markets and urged PJM to develop market-based solutions that limit the practice.
- Public Service Commission of West Virginia and the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office asked FERC to accept Mon Power’s complaint and investigate whether PJM’s storm scheduling complied with grid-operator rules.
Why it matters: Mon Power says ordinary West Virginia citizens would bear the $145 million without FERC intervention, while generator groups say a rerun would violate market finality and FERC precedent. The dispute therefore extends beyond one utility’s loss to the settled-market rules governing PJM’s gas-heavy emergency commitments.
Ask SkimNews
