Renewable resources, including demand response and energy efficiency, made up nearly 68% of the new capacity available and about 10% of the resources clearing PJM Interconnection's recently completed capacity auction, the regional transmission organization (RTO) reports.
The results were contained in PJM's recently released Reliability Pricing Model (RPM) capacity auction for resources to meet customers' electric power demand in the June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2015, delivery year. RPM commits resources three years in advance to be made available to preserve reliability.
"The increase in demand resources follows the introduction of two new demand-resource products in addition to the existing product - one available throughout the year and another available for an extended summer period," says Andrew Ott, PJM senior vice president of markets. "There was more than a 50 percent increase in the amount of demand resources that cleared this year over last year. In addition, investment in new generation and upgrades to existing generation resources are occurring, showing that generation owners are investing capacity revenues to maintain and enhance existing units."
The RPM auction procured 149,974 MW of capacity resources, including 14,118 MW of demand response (a 52% increase over last year), 822 MW of energy efficiency, 695 MW of wind power and 45.6 MW of solar power. More than 757 MW of new generation was located in transmission-constrained areas. The installed capacity represents a 19.6% reserve margin for the RTO.
