Constellation pushes FERC for PJM rules on co-located generation

The November 22 filing calls the PJM’s Open Access Transmission Tariff “unjust and unreasonable and unduly discriminatory, because it does not contain rules for interconnected generators to follow when seeking to provide service to fully isolated co-located load, which is generation and end-use load co-located behind-the-meter in a configuration that includes protective relays to prevent the load from receiving power from the grid.” Constellation is asking FERC to fast track its decision.

The lack of tariff rules is causing inconsistency in how transmission owners across the PJM region serve co-located load, the complaint contends.

Quotable: “Some local utilities are taking advantage of the lack of tariff rules to thwart competition to serve large end use loads, thereby delaying by several years and significantly increasing costs to serve data centers that are critical to national security, economic development, and other national priorities,” the filing says.

“It is necessary to establish consistency across the PJM footprint and avoid the current circumstance of each of the transmission owners in PJM deciding whether and to what extent they will follow PJM’s guidance. Otherwise, we will be left with a mishmash of co-location rules at the federal level that are driven by the self-interests of each of the transmission utilities.”

Background: FERC recently denied Talen Energy’s proposal to supply additional on-site power to an Amazon Web Services data center campus from the neighboring Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. In its 2-1 ruling on November 1, FERC said the parties did not make a strong enough case to prove why a special contract allowing for expanded behind-the-meter power sales should be allowed in this instance. Two of the five FERC commissioners did not participate in the vote.

In April, PJM issued guidance on co-located loads, which Constellation wants to see the grid operator apply into its tariffs. According to the document, “A co-located load configuration refers to end-use customer load that is physically connected to the facilities of an existing or planned customer facility on the interconnection side of the point of interconnection (POI) to the PJM transmission system.”

The impact: Connecting a major data center to the grid can take five to 10 years, and in a global race for new technology, and delay is harmful to the national interest, RTO Insider reports.

“There is a clear, bipartisan consensus that maintaining U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence is necessary to maintaining our national security,” according to Constellation’s complaint. “Leadership in AI, an ‘era-defining technology,’ will require a massive and unprecedented investment in the data centers necessary to develop and operate those AI models, and access to reliable electricity is the lifeblood of those data centers. . . . Each year that hyperscale data centers await interconnection to the grid, risks another year of losing ground to competing nations.”

Exelon utilities are delaying co-location proposals by refusing to cooperate in the “necessary study” process required for possible interconnection changes, including at four Constellation nuclear stations, Utility Dive reports. This includes Commonwealth Edison’s refusal to complete previously agreed upon work during an upcoming planned outage at LaSalle nuclear plant in Illinois, which will increase costs to Constellation by $15.3 million to $19 million, according to the complaint.

Constellation is asking FERC to move quickly because the company is “suffering immediate injury by Exelon’s refusal to follow the current rules, resulting in Exelon stymying competition for co-located data center projects.”

“Transmission upgrades are piling up, connections of load are delayed, and bilateral commercial arrangements that would serve data centers promptly and efficiently while securing the future of nuclear and other valuable units on the grid are being thwarted by regulatory uncertainty,” the filing adds.