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VALLEY FORGE, Pa., May 6, 2003 -- PJM Interconnection has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to allow more customers to participate in a special load-response program, which can strengthen reliability and help stabilize wholesale electricity prices.
Generally, load-response programs require expensive, special electric meters to verify reductions in electricity usage. PJM's program allows participation by smaller customers without special meters. The special electric meters record electricity usage for each hour.
Participation by customers without hourly meters is limited to a total of 25 megawatts. (A megawatt is a measure or how much electricity customers demand.) Because current interest in the program would exceed the 25-megawatt limit, PJM has asked the FERC to expand the program to 100 megawatts of customer demand.
A load-response program pays customers for reducing electricity use. It is an alternative to generating more electricity. When wholesale prices are high, load response can stabilize prices by reducing demand. When electricity supplies are short, load response reduces stress on the grid.
Through this experimental load-response program, PJM aims to devise and evaluate new and less expensive measurement and verification methodologies for customers without hourly meters. If the FERC approves the program's expansion, PJM will work with other entities, which have already expressed interest, to develop three or four experimental approaches to measuring hourly load reductions without expensive, hourly meters.
PJM, the country's first fully functioning regional transmission organization, operates the world's largest competitive wholesale electricity market and North America's largest power grid. The company currently coordinates a pooled generating capacity of more than 74,000 megawatts and operates a wholesale electricity market with more than 200 market buyers, sellers and traders of electricity.
PJM has administered more than $15 billion in energy and energy service trades since the regional markets opened in 1997. More than 70 nations have sent delegates to PJM to learn about its market model and the operation of the grid in a region including more than 25 million people in all or parts of Del., Md., N.J., Ohio, Pa., Va., W.Va. and the District of Columbia. Visit PJM at www.pjm.com.
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