Wind turbines growing more numerous and more powerful

From an Article by Rachel McDevitt, State Impact Pennsylvania, May 27, 2022

PHOTO IN ARTICLE ~ Turbines that are part of the Sandy Ridge Wind Farm in Centre and Blair counties. Wind energy is one option for electricity consumers in Pennsylvania.

The electric grid operator for the region that includes Pennsylvania is PJM (aka Pennsylvania – Jersey – Maryland) is preparing for a shift in electricity generation. There are nearly 700 Pennsylvania projects waiting in PJM’s queue. Most are solar projects. PJM recently released a road map for the grid of the future.

Over the next 15 years, it expects to add 100,000 megawatts of renewable power from sources including onshore and offshore wind, solar, and battery storage. Right now there are about 15,000 MW of renewables on the PJM grid. It takes one megawatt to power about 200 homes.

PJM estimates it will cost $3 billion to bring on those resources. Some of those costs could be offset by federal infrastructure money. But some will ultimately filter down to consumers’ bills. However, some experts argue that the low cost of generating renewable energy and a more efficient grid will save money in the long term.

To prepare, PJM is looking to streamline the process for new sources to join the grid and studying how to expand transmission and maintain reliability. Electric generators and municipalities within PJM recently voted to speed up and improve the process for getting new power on the grid. The plan is expected to go into effect later this year or in early 2023. Under it, proposed projects would be addressed on a first-ready, first-served basis rather than first come, first served. PJM would also simplify its analysis of project costs.

This PJM operator says the number of projects entering its New Services Queue has nearly tripled over the past four years, because of the rapid growth in renewables. PJM started this year with nearly 2,500 projects under study, with the vast majority of proposed megawatts coming from renewable or storage resources.

The plan would create a fast track for about 450 projects. There are nearly 700 Pennsylvania projects waiting in PJM’s queue. Most are solar projects.

PJM Interconnection coordinates the movement of electricity through all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Pennsylvania has a total generation capacity of more than 48,000 megawatts.

About StateImpact Pennsylvania ~ StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.

Another natural gas fired power plant is proposed, for Monongalia County north of Morgantown and very near Pennsylvania

From the Opinion Editor, The Dominion Post, October 30, 2019

Maybe they’ll listen to him or maybe not. They don’t listen to us. They belittle environmentalists. They scoff at facts. They don’t even pay attention to markets.

But last week, the CEO of Longview Power, Jeff Keffler, made it clear: “The writing is on the wall” for coal-fired power plants in West Virginia.

He noted that the average age of most of those plants in West Virginia is about 45 years and seven of the top generating eight locations could be retired in the next few years.

Those coal-fired plants represented virtually all — more than 92% — of the state’s electric generation in 2018.

But the aging fleet of coal-fired plants in our state is not the only thing our political leaders have not been reading on that wall in recent days and years.

Murray Energy Corp., on Tuesday, became the fifth large coal company to throw in the towel to bankruptcy court this year. Coal once fueled about half of all U.S. electricity; now it powers less than a quarter.

Coal miners’ numbers have dropped to about 14,000 — about 12% of the 125,000 miners in West Virginia in 1950.

We applaud Longview’s CEO for being willing to not just say that our state’s coal industry is in transition. Because it’s not in transition, it’s sinking like a ship.

And he’s just not talking the talk, either. His company is actually in the process of building a new, $1.1 billion electric-generating facility based on a combination of natural gas and solar generating units.

But just for a moment, let’s suspend our disbelief again that all it was going to take is an executive order, or 10, from the president to revive the coal industry.

Let’s also take the glut of cheaper and available natural gas out of the equation along with increasingly cheaper and available renewables.

Also forget that despite coal-fired plants accounting for 92% of our state’s electricity, less than a third of state residents heat their homes with that coal-fired electricity.

Or that some West Virginia power plants import up to 50% of their coal from other states, due to the price.

Set all of that aside, because according to President Trump, with a sweep of his pen, undoing the Clean Power Plan, quitting the Paris Climate Accord and gutting environmental regulations he would revive the coal industry. Remember?

Or if you want to believe our aged congressional delegation, whose re-election always takes precedence to the truth, there’s still hope for the coal industry.

We don’t believe there is hope for the coal industry or any reason to be hopeful. We want new ideas and new leadership to ensure our past is not our legacy.

When our leaders no longer even express a political will to change, it’s time to vote for a change in 2020.

They will have to listen to that.

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See also: Gas-fired power projects on the rise in WV, Charles Young, WV News — wvnews.com, October 7, 2019

CHARLESTON — While the old adage says coal is king in West Virginia, natural gas is beginning to play a larger role in the state’s energy generation landscape.

Plans for a significant natural gas-fired power plant project are underway in Harrison County, and Longview Power has recently announced its intention to construct a new facility housing one gas-fired and one solar-powered plant in Monongalia County.

PJM Grid Generation Outlook to 2040

From an Article by Chloe Holden, Green Tech Media, May 20, 2019

Solar and wind have struggled to compete against a flood of cheap natural gas in the largest U.S. wholesale power market, operated by PJM, the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland Interconnect System which includes the electrical grid in the middle Atlantic states even WV, Ohio, Indiana, and VA.

Interconnection queue requests across all the major North American markets show that over 90 percent of new requests now consist of solar, wind and storage. This is the result of state-level policies and declining costs.

Even in PJM, where natural gas has dominated the generation queue, new requests are now giving way to wind, solar and battery storage projects. (PJM is the country’s leader for front-of-the-meter storage, though it will likely be overtaken by California in 2020.)

However, as utilities replace retiring coal assets in PJM, coal capacity has been replaced at almost a one-for-one rate with new combined-cycle natural-gas generation. Over the last several years, 29 gigawatts of retiring coal plants in PJM have been replaced with 23 gigawatts of natural gas, according to a recent Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables webinar.

PJM Generation Outlook (GW) is shown the color graphic insert above.

PJM’s natural-gas plant building boom has been centered in northeast Pennsylvania, with additional recent activity in southwest Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio, near natural-gas resources. Operation costs are low and gas supplies plentiful, driving the cost of electricity down.

Because of this plentiful natural gas, wind and solar are not yet competing with natural gas on price in PJM when it comes to replacing coal. Wood Mackenzie’s analysts contrasted PJM with Texas’ ERCOT territory, where wind and solar dominate the generation queue.

In ERCOT, plenty of coal plants have been retired, including 4 gigawatts in 2018 alone. Prices in ERCOT’s energy-only market are not consistently high enough to make the market attractive for new natural-gas development. Wind and solar are picking up the slack; even small solar installations under 1 megawatt have flourished, nearly doubling capacity in just two years from 2016 to 2018.

With PJM’s natural-gas boom in full swing, will the region be locked into natural-gas generation for the lifetime of today’s new plants?

Wood Mackenzie analysis for 20 years out suggests gas will continue to make up around 40 percent of the generation mix, barring dramatic changes to how the energy mix is determined. Resources still must compete in an open market, and PJM holds a forward capacity auction three years in advance. (This year’s 2022/2023 Base Residual Auction will be held in August 2019.)

While front-of-the-meter renewables struggle to gain ground relative to natural gas in PJM due to low prices, one area to keep an eye on is flexibility and distributed energy resources in PJM. Organizations like the Solar Energy Industries Association argue that to level the playing field in PJM, grid operators will need to evolve power markets in order to take advantage of “inverter-based resources.”

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)

Recent developments have shown what’s possible, as changes to wholesale markets are poised to bring more storage and DERs into the mix in the independent system operator and regional transmission organization footprints. FERC Order 841 has nudged market operators to take a closer look at storage, although the commission still has to rule on the pending DER proceeding.

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See Also: PJM and Argonne National Laboratory Collaborate to Study Guidelines for Solar Resources, PJM News Release, April 2, 2019

Rover Pipeline sediment pollutes adjoining land area

From an Article by Joe Napsha, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, November 13, 2018

A natural gas drilling company was fined $294,000 by the state for polluting the Monongahela River last year with about 4 million gallons of mine water when it punctured an abandoned mine as it was boring underneath Route 136 in Forward Township to install a pipe to carry fresh water for a drilling site.

The Department of Environmental Protection in Pittsburgh said Tuesday EQT Production Co. in Cecil paid the fine as part of a consent order and agreement covering violations of the Clean Streams Law in Allegheny County.

According to the DEP, EQT inadvertently pierced the abandoned Gallatin mine on January 17, 2017 as it was boring a hole underneath Route 136 to install a pipeline from the Monongahela River to its Rostosky drilling site in Forward Township, Allegheny County. It took EQT until Jan. 31 to stop the discharge through the waterline borehole to unnamed tributaries of the Monongahela River and associated wetlands.

EQT was aware when it applied for permits in July 2016 there were several abandoned coal mines in the area, the DEP said. EQT relied on regional mapping that generally described mine pools as “not flooded or unknown” but did not undertake any further investigation. There were seeps of orange water near the area of the waterline borehole.

Since the incident, EQT has constructed a collection and drainage system similar to what was in place when the water was discharged. EQT also agreed to establish a $100,000 fund with the Clean Streams Foundation to provide for the maintenance, operation, and replacement of the system.

In September, Commonweath Court upheld a $1.1 million fine levied against EQT Production’s parent company, EQT Corp. of Pittsburgh, for violating state environmental laws by failing to prevent significant contamination from a fracking water holding pond in Tioga County six years ago.

The state Environmental Hearing Board found that water from the drilling site in Tioga County continued to pollute area groundwater, even after the company emptied the pond.

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ROVER natural gas pipeline agrees to pay $430,000 penalty for water pollution violations

From an Article by Kate Mishkin, Charleston Gazette, June 12, 2018

Rover Pipeline LLC has agreed to pay the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection $430,000 for water pollution violations in the state, according to a consent order made public Tuesday.

The natural gas pipeline project and the WV-DEP made the deal May 15, documents show, but the public comment period for the consent order ends July 13.

The agreement is in response to notices of violation and cease-and-desist orders issued to Rover Pipeline dating back to April 2017, said Jake Glance, spokesman for the DEP. In all, the pipeline has received 18 notices of violation and two cease-and-desist orders, the most recent of which was issued on March 5, when the regulators said crews left trash and construction partially buried on site and failed to clean the roads around the construction site.

The DEP also issued a cease-and-desist order in July 2017 for similar violations.

Rover is just one of the major pipelines being built to tap into the region’s natural gas boom. Last month, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, another pipeline project, also received a violation notice from the DEP for violating water quality standards — problems environmental and citizen groups warned might happen.

“What Rover shows us is that pipelines do have water quality impacts and when you layer the steep terrain and the complex hydrology … you’re getting into uncharted territory and we fear we’re going to see more problems and possibly even worse than we see with Rover,” Rosser said. “We hope it’s not in repeated nature we’ve seen with Rover.”

The $430,000 agreed-upon penalty is substantial, but it’s a small sliver of the project’s $4 billion budget, she said. Plus, the DEP spends money to monitor the pipelines and inspect construction sites.

“So $430,000, I would suppose a great deal of that went to cover DEP’s ability to provide the oversight. And then you’ve got a hundred sites where the streams have been polluted, and how can you put a dollar figure on that?” Rosser said. “The chemistry of the streams has been changed and can’t be reversed to how they were.”

Construction on the pipeline was “essentially complete,” and the company is working with the WV-DEP to finalize the settlement, a spokeswoman for the company said. The consent order references violations dating back to April 2017, including failing to control erosion and keeping sediment water from leaving construction sites.

“The good news that I see is that [the] DEP was on top of it, that they did a good job documenting multiple violations and it shows the importance of oversight of these projects because this company did not appear to be acting in good faith,” said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

Energy Transfer Partners, Rover Pipeline’s owner, also owns the Dakota Access Pipeline — the subject of protests and heightened attention over its being built in North Dakota.

The 713-mile-long Rover Pipeline will move natural gas from processing plants in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Crews are building the pipeline in Doddridge, Tyler and Wetzel counties in West Virginia.

Rover is just one of the major pipelines being built to tap into the region’s natural gas boom. Last month, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, another pipeline project, also received a violation notice from the DEP for violating water quality standards — problems environmental and citizen groups warned might happen.

“What Rover shows us is that pipelines do have water quality impacts and when you layer the steep terrain and the complex hydrology … you’re getting into uncharted territory and we fear we’re going to see more problems and possibly even worse than we see with Rover,” Rosser said. “We hope it’s not in repeated nature we’ve seen with Rover.”

The $430,000 agreed-upon penalty is substantial, but it’s a small sliver of the project’s $4 billion budget, she said. Plus, the DEP spends money to monitor the pipelines and inspect construction sites.

“So $430,000, I would suppose a great deal of that went to cover DEP’s ability to provide the oversight. And then you’ve got a hundred sites where the streams have been polluted, and how can you put a dollar figure on that?” Rosser said. “The chemistry of the streams has been changed and can’t be reversed to how they were.”

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FERC approves service on two (2) Rover Pipeline laterals

Reported from the Kallanish Energy News Service, November 5, 2018

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has granted Rover Pipeline permission to begin additional service moving natural gas across northern Ohio.

The federal agency last week told the company it could begin service on the Sherwood Lateral, Sherwood Compressor Station, Sherwood Delivery Meter Station, CGT Lateral and CGT Delivery Meter Station in the Appalachian Basin (primarily in West Virginia).

They were the last parts of the Rover pipeline project that needed FERC approval.

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Federal agency cites Rover Pipeline for three (3) violations

Reported from the Kallanish Energy News Service, October 31, 2018

Rover Pipeline has been cited for three violations by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The violations are for improper testing of pipeline welds, failing to comply with specifications or standards on repairing dents to the steel pipe, and failure to build the pipeline to avoid stresses on the pipeline.

The agency said the company committed “probable violations.” The violations could have triggered multi-million-dollar fines, but the federal agency said no fines would be imposed. The company said it is not contesting the violations and has been working with the federal agency to correct the problems. It said it is “in general agreement” with the agency’s proposed compliance order.

The company has spent in excess of $11.5 million in correcting the problems, it reported. Those violations have prevented Rover Pipeline from beginning commercial service on its Sherwood and CGT laterals to move natural gas from the Appalachian Basin, the company acknowledged.

The violations were discovered in PHMSA inspections on January 25, March 19-22, May 8-11 and June 18. The violations were issued by the PHMSA on September 11 and came to light in a recent company filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that oversees interstate pipelines.

Rover Pipeline, an Energy Transfer Partners’ subsidiary, on October 25 filed a request with FERC seeking to begin full operations on the Sherwood and CGT laterals prior to November 1. It said the problems with the PHMSA had been corrected.

It said its shippers “have urgently requested Rover to place these facilities in service to allow their stranded natural gas supplies to be transported to Midwest markets.” A similar request was filed last August.

Those two laterals are mechanically complete and the final grading and seeding have been completed, Rover Pipeline wrote. The company said it has also filed plans for additional ground-movement areas outside the construction right-of-way along the Sherwood and CGT laterals.

The Sherwood Lateral runs about 54 miles from eastern Ohio into West Virginia. The CGT line runs roughly six miles from the Sherwood line to an interconnection with a Columbia Gas Transmission line. They are among the last Rover laterals to be approved for commercial service.

The $4.2 billion twin pipelines had encountered trouble with leaks and spills from horizontal directional drilling in Ohio where drilling had been halted for a time because of concern by state agencies. Construction was also halted for a time in West Virginia because of erosion and sediment control problems along pipeline laterals.

The 713-mile pipeline will move up to 3.25 billion cubic feet per day of Utica and Marcellus natural gas to the Gulf Coast, the Midwest and Ontario. Initial service on the pipeline began August 31, 2017.

Hickory Run Energy Station

From an Article by Dan O’Brien, Business Journal, Youngstown, OH, May 3, 2018

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The investment numbers are unlike any the region has witnessed in decades – more than $4.6 billion scattered across four counties in or around the Mahoning Valley where new, nimble and efficient electrical power plants are either in operation, under construction or under consideration.

It’s a signature of where growth in new energy will develop in America and what it will look like. This section of northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania – with its abundance of natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus shales – has emerged as the fulcrum for the industry’s future.

As older, less efficient power plants are retired or shut down, they’re being replaced with smaller, more cost-efficient combined-cycle plants that use natural gas and steam – not coal or nuclear power – to generate electricity for homes and businesses.

“What’s happening in the industry right now is equivalent to the automobile replacing the horse and buggy,” says Bill Siderewicz, president of Massachusetts-based Clean Energy Future LLC, which developed the Lordstown Energy Center, under construction, and is working to secure a second project for Lordstown, the Trumbull Energy Center.

“What’s happening is companies like FirstEnergy had these plants and failed to modernize them. And now companies like ourselves are finding a market to produce electricity more efficiently and at less cost,” Siderewicz says.

FirstEnergy Corp. announced March 28 that it would close all three of its nuclear power plants – the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio, and the Beaver Valley Power Station in western Pennsylvania – over the next three years, as well as its two remaining coal-fired power plants.

“Though the plants have taken aggressive measures to cut costs, the market challenges facing these units are beyond their control,” said Don Moul, president of FES Generation Companies.

Then on March 31, two of FirstEnergy’s subsidiaries – FirstEnergy Solutions, which operates its coal-fired plants, and First Energy Nuclear Operating Co. – filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On April 23, the parent company announced an agreement with key creditors that could allow for a quick exit from Chapter 11.

Part of the agreement provides FirstEnergy Solutions and First Energy Operating Nuclear Co. with help from FirstEnergy on “key business matters” as it undergoes reorganization, the company said.

Siderewicz says that the bottom line is that these older plants are simply uncompetitive and will remain so. “They’re sitting on these antiquated coal plants. These plants have 100% higher costs than a combined-cycle plant,” he says. “It’s simply uneconomical for coal. And there’s no way to salvage them.”

So it came as no surprise to Siderewicz that the FirstEnergy subsidiaries filed Chapter 11 and that it has targeted three nuclear plants for shutdown, eventually eliminating 4,000 megawatts of power generation – most of it in Ohio – the equivalent of providing electricity to four million homes.

That power generation has to be replaced by other sources, Siderewicz says, and companies such as Clean Energy are queued to help fill that gap. “That’s why we came to Ohio,” he says. “There are tremendous opportunities for projects like the Trumbull Energy Center and other new plants.”

Clean Energy Future LLC was responsible for development of the Lordstown Energy Center at the Lordstown Industrial Park. That $890 million plant was sold to majority owner Macquarie, an international investment firm, and is under construction to open late this year.

But efforts to build a second plant of similar scope – the Trumbull Energy Center – adjacent to the one under construction are compromised because of a protracted legal battle between Clean Energy Future and the owners of the Lordstown Energy Center. Together, the plants would generate enough electricity to supply power to just less than two million homes.

Clean Energy Future was also the lead developer of a natural gas fired power plant – the Oregon Clean Energy Center – in Lucas County. A second plant is permitted and planned for the Lucas County site and is projected to be commissioned by 2020.

What attracts power generation projects to Ohio is the abundance of low-cost natural gas derived from the Utica and Marcellus shale plays. Across Ohio, 11 new combined-cycle electrical generation plants worth an estimated $10.5 billion are either recently completed, under construction or in the planning or permit stages (CLICK HERE to see chart in May print edition).

Of that number, about $4.6 billion is devoted to new energy production plants in or around the Mahoning Valley. In addition to the two Lordstown projects – they’re valued at about $890 million each – new power plants are operating in Carroll County, proposed for Columbiana County in Ohio and under construction Lawrence County in western Pennsylvania, all within the footprint of the Utica shale.

One of the largest projects is Advanced Power’s South Field Energy plant near Wellsville in Columbiana County. The company, which earlier this year commenced operations at its Carroll County Energy plant, plans to invest $1.1 billion to build a plant capable of generating 1,170 megawatts of electricity, enough for 1.1 million homes.

“The project is expected to begin construction in the second half of 2018,” reports Zac Gordon, project manager for South Field Energy. Construction is expected to last about three years and the targeted commission date is the second quarter of 2021.

Like the Lordstown plants, South Field and Carroll County use lower-cost natural gas instead of coal as fuel. Moreover, these high-tech facilities use heat – a byproduct of generation – to power a steam turbine that produces additional electricity. The process is much cleaner and causes less harm to the atmosphere and environment.

“The investment in South Field Energy will push Advanced Power’s investment in the region to over $2 billion in the span of approximately five years,” Gordon says. “The investment stimulates the local economy through purchases, creation of jobs and local tax revenue.”

These projects combined have the potential to create thousands of construction jobs, says Linda Nitch, director of economic development for the Lawrence County Regional Chamber in New Castle, Pennsylvania.

Last summer, Tyr Energy, the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese energy giant Itochu, began construction on its $863 million Hickory Run Energy Station about five miles west of New Castle. The 1,000 megawatt plant is expected to be operating by April 2020. Power generation equipment will be two Siemens H-class gas turbine generators, two heat recovery steam generators and a Siemens steam turbine generator.

“It’s a wonderful investment,” Nitch says. “From the standpoint of construction, there should be about 500 workers there at its peak.” But once the plant is operating, the number of permanent employees is much lower than larger, conventional power-generation facilities such as the Beaver Valley Nuclear Plant. “The new plant probably won’t exceed 50 people employed,” Nitch says.

The Beaver Valley station, on the other hand, employs more than 1,000 workers, many of whom live in Lawrence County and commute to work there. “Closing the nuclear plant will cost a lot of jobs,” Nitch says.

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PJM will study ‘fuel security’ of electric grid as natural gas use rises — Some 40 natural gas power plants proposed in Pennsylvania

Last week's cold snap brought three of PJM Interconnection’s top 10 highest winter peak demands for electricity

From PJM Interconnection, January 09, 2018

VALLEY FORGE, Pa., Jan. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The cold weather from Dec. 27, 2017 through Jan. 7, 2018, brought three of PJM Interconnection’s top 10 highest winter peak demands for electricity. The grid operator credits planning and lessons learned implemented from the Polar Vortex for system resilience during this season’s first cold snap.

“After the Polar Vortex [of 2014], PJM worked with our members to better prepare to meet the demands of the system in cold weather,” said Mike Bryson, vice president – Operations. “We implemented the Capacity Performance construct’s strict standards for resources, strengthened communications with gas pipelines and improved preparation coordination with members. Member companies also made modifications to improve equipment performance. In the end, we saw better availability of resources during the extreme cold.”

Bryson said that PJM worked with members on cold weather preparedness, a fuel inventory survey, resource testing and a drill for emergency procedures. The cold weather exercises allow units to identify and correct start-up, operational and fuel switching issues prior to cold weather operations. PJM will continue to work with its members, he said, to improve reliable operations.

Generators qualifying as Capacity Performance resources must be ready to deliver electricity in a PJM power supply emergency. Generators must have firm fuel supplies or be able to switch to a secondary fuel or fuel source.

Friday evening, Jan. 5, PJM recorded its fourth-highest wintertime peak demand for electricity. At 7 p.m. (eastern) Friday, demand for electricity reached 138,465 megawatts. The other two top 10 winter peak demands were 136,206 MW on the morning of Jan. 5 (eighth highest) and 136,125 MW on Jan. 3 (10th highest).

During the run of 11 days, the average RTO-wide temperature did not reach as high as 20 degrees. The average low temperature was 2.9 degrees on Jan. 1, 2018.

Each year, PJM analyzes the expected demand for electricity, weather predictions and other factors to develop its forecast for the season’s operations.

Among the factors PJM looked at this year was a southward shift in the polar vortex that caused unusually cool weather in August of 2017. That shift indicated a risk of periods of arctic cold through the winter of 2017-2018.

PJM Interconnection, founded in 1927, ensures the reliability of the high-voltage electric power system serving 65 million people in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. PJM coordinates and directs the operation of the region’s transmission grid, which includes over 82,000 miles of transmission lines; administers a competitive wholesale electricity market; and plans regional transmission expansion improvements to maintain grid reliability and relieve congestion. PJM’s regional grid and market operations produce annual savings of $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion. For the latest news about PJM, visit PJM Inside Lines at insidelines.pjm.com

SOURCE PJM Interconnection, http://www.pjm.com