Negative Capacity Charge ???

[marco'polo]

Hello Everyone,

Here's a question from the left field. Can the PLC (aka Capacity Obligation) be a negative kw number ? If so, does it translate into a capacity credit on the bill ?

Example:

The PLC is calculated as the average of the 5 CP (coincident peak demand hours) on the ComEd and the 5 CP hours on the PJM grid. These tend to be hot summer days. Now if a home or business has a vast amount of solar power behind the meter that will backfeed into the grid during the same hours, then metered demand during some of some CP hours will be negative. How are these hours treated in the calculation of the average ? Do they stay negative ? Are they arbitrarily "zeroed" ? The injection into the grid brings as much relief as load shedding, so it would make sense to allow negative values.

And then, if the computation results in an actual negative PLC kW value, does the home receive a PLC credit on the bill from ComEd or the third-energy supplier ?

Thanks in advance to anyone's insights :-)

[Rex Irby]

I think I found the answer after going throught the rateBoook.pdf:

1.  Start at POGNM - PARALLEL OPERATION OF RETAIL CUSTOMER GENERATING FACILITIES WITH NET METERING

2.  Find Classification NM5 - Rate BESH Customers (generally)

3.  Find the "Credits and Compensation" section

4.  Find the "NM2 or NM5 Classifications section under 3

5.  Find how the "monetary supply adjustment" is calculated.

The following section verbatim but put hierarchical from the real text:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

(A) the summation, over all hours in the monthly billing period during which there is net output from the retail customer's electric generating facilities to the Company's distribution system, of

(1) the sum, in dollars per kWh ($/kWh), of the

(a) Hourly Energy Charge (HEC) for each such hour,

(b) PJM Services Charge,

(c) Miscellaneous Procurement Components Charge, and

(d) Hourly Purchased Electricity Adjustment Factor (HPEA), as each such charge or factor is described in the Monthly Charges section of Rate BESH or the Charges section of Rider PPO, as applicable,

(2) multiplied by the net output, in kWhs, provided to the Company's distribution system by the retail customer in each such hour,

(B) less the summation, over all hours in the monthly billing period during which there is a net supply of electric power and energy provided by the Company to the retail customer, of

(1) the sum, in $/kWh, of the applicable

(a) HEC for each such hour,

(b) PJM Services Charge,

(c) Miscellaneous Procurement Components Charge, and

(d) HPEA,

(2) multiplied by  the net kWhs supplied by the Company to the retail customer in each such hour.

To the extent that the monetary supply adjustment computed in accordance with the provisions of this paragraph results in a debit owed by the retail customer, the Company assesses charges for the provision of electric power and energy supply for which the retail customer is responsible, as applicable.

To the extent that the monetary supply adjustment computed in accordance with the provisions of this paragraph results in a credit for the retail customer, the Company assesses credits for the net electrical power and energy provided by the retail customer to the Company, as applicable, and such credits are shown separately on the retail customer’s monthly bill for electric service.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Q:  Capacity Obligation) be a negative kw number ? If so, does it translate into a capacity credit on the bill ?

Appears the answer is Yes and its combined equally with the same calculation for the hours that you are not generating enough and pulling from the grid.

No cash out, but you do carry the credit balance to the next month and then whatever is in a credit balance at year end is donated to the "ComEd good" and no financial or tax benefits accrue from your gracious gift.

Conclusion:  Size your solar PV array carefully.  

Cheers,  Rex

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[Marc Thrum]

Thanks for doing this Rex, you went quite in depth to find the answer !

The finding is fascinating. It opens new perspective for large behind-the-meter solar systems, mostly for businesses who are most often assessed individualized PLC, whether they are on a fixed or RT rate.

[Rex Irby]

You nailed the reason why commercial ComEd accounts are jumping on solar PV - Demand Charge reduction since it can be 50% of their total bill regardless of usage in kWh.

I just finished my Solar PV NABCEP Associate certification and have been working on getting Community Solar going with FEJA.

Cheers,  Rex

[Larrymdwst]

That's not quite correct. The ICC opened Docket 12-0365 (which was consolidated with existing Docket 11-0144) to answer this question. Energy charges and capacity charges are not the same and as such are not calculated the same way. The information Rex provided concerns energy, not capacity. The determination in the above Dockets provides information on capacity. These Dockets are public and available through the ICC website. The below excerpt may address the question:

"For purposes of determining a LSE’s obligation, it is well-established by the FERC that the capacity obligation for end-use customers, which would include hourly net metering customers like Mr. Xxxxxxxx, equals the average net load, not to be less than 0 kW, based on the difference between the amount of power consumed in the end-use customer’s home, less the amount of power produced by the end-use customer’s photovoltaic system (or other generation device), during each of the five PJM peak hours."

This would indicate that while a PLC is based on the average net load, it cannot be less than zero kW (therefore it cannot be negative).

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[Rex Irby]

"This would indicate that while a PLC is based on the average net load, it cannot be less than zero kW (therefore it cannot be negative)."

True it cant be less than zero but its a positive number (odds of actually being zero with solar onsite generation would still be very low) that gets multiplied times kWh back to grid and thus becomes a negative number in total with all the other positive line item charges.

Negative Capacity Charge is a tough term here, I believe what he meant is it to have the capacity charge be a part of the overproduction of electricity during solar peak hours and send more electricity back to the grid.

If you were a regular BES customer then your credit would not have any PJM Service Charge, whereas BESH, those on this group do take full advantage or more than "avoided cost" at the full rate that we pay for electricity less taxes.  We get more than capacity back we get almost the whole kWh unit price back during the overproduction period.   If this has changed its not reflective on the ratebook that is on ComEd website today.

Commercial clients, like RTP BESH customers, pay for capacity charge directly on their bill with Demand Charges as you probably already know.  All customers pay a PJM capacity charge, BES customers have it in the fixed rate and don't see it as a line item.

Community Solar lost the Transmission charge or also known ad Distribution Facilities Charge for excess generation calculation - is this the docket update you speak of without me having to go research another 3 hours on the crazy ICC website chasing dockets -  a literal hell whole.

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[Larrymdwst]

His question was purely PLC related, and a customer's PLC cannot be negative. There is the real possibility for a net metered Hourly Pricing customer to have a zero PLC. This can happen if their solar panel output equals or is more than their load, during each of the hours of the PJM and ComEd 5CPs. A zero PLC would result in a zero Capacity Obligation which would result in a zero Capacity Charge line item. This line item charge will remain the same for the 12 billing periods from June of one year through May of the next, and is not affected by the net kWh in any given billing period.

The remainder of the Supply section line items of a bill are affected by net kWh, as are some of the line items in the Delivery and Taxes & Fees sections.  The details of which line items are affected (and how) depends on a customer's supply choice; utility fixed, utility hourly or third party supplier.

You are correct that net metering associated with Community Solar is different, but that is not what is in question here. The Dockets I referenced are not Community Solar related. The question here is just whether a net metering Hourly Pricing customer can have a negative PLC, and that answer is no.

[Marc Thrum]

Thank you, both of you, for the time you took for these extremely detailed answers. Yes, I meant PLC in the sense described by larrymdwst.

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[Ryan Ziolko]

Bringing this thread back.  So if an RRTP (BESH) customer has a PV system and is feeding the grid during the 5CPs, they can end up with a $0 capacity charge?  Or is it better than that?

Regards,

Ryan

[Marc Thrum]

Thanks for everyone's contributions.

Indeed it PJM manuals state that the PLC cannot be negative... So alas no credit if you do to good of a job at managing this.

It still allows some of the 5CP hours with negative demand (if you have a big Pv system or a battery or both) to offset some other 5CP hours with positive measure.

With a CP hour prediction engine and good load management you can indeed eliminate capacity charges, I just did this for a commercial customer.

[Rex Irby]

I would agree 100% - the capacity obligation would be 0 or higher.  It could never drop below zero.  If it was zero then you would forfeit any value for over-production back to the grid on he rate credited. 

Not having to pay Capacity  is better would be than paying it.

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[Ryan Ziolko]

So the individual hours can still be negative, but when averaged together they limit it to 0?

As an example, if I had an hour where I feed in 4kW, and then used 1 kWh for each of the other 5CP hours, my PLC would be 0?  (-4 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1)/5 = 0

Is it the net usage for the hour?  Say I had a brief high load where for part of the our I drew from the grid, but overall I feed in more than I used for the hour, is that still a negative value?

Thanks,

Ryan

[Ty Curtin]

My capacity charge juat went from $2.36 to over $18!

[Rex Irby]

We are likely right now  - NOW in a 5CP event !!

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[Robert Fairbairn]

Is there a way to find out if we are?

[Ryan Ziolko]

To be certain, not until the end of the season, but I agree this is _very_ likely a 5CP.

At 4:25pm EDT PJM hit 149,373MW, which is up there with past 5CPs.  So the 5CP hour would be 4-5pm EDT.  ComEd usage peaked at 5:05pm EDT.  Demand is on its way down now.

Later,

Ryan

Rex Irby
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[Ty Curtin]

Hey

Does anyone know what the 5 peak hours are for this year? 2018

[Ty Curtin]

They just published!

https://www.pjm.com/~/media/planning/res-adeq/load-forecast/20181017-summer-2018-peaks-and-5cps.ashx

[Ryan Ziolko]

So 6/18/2018 was a 5CP.  :-)

ComEd hasn't posted them (yet), but if they are where they usually are, they should be here in another week or two:

https://www.comed.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/MyAccount/MyService/ComEd_5_Peaks.pdf

Later,

Ryan

[Gerald Fountain]

For the less savvy amongst us, does this mean if I look at my historical figures (ComEd site, my green button data) and then look at the usage. Green button lists by half hour (and is explicit for the time duration since it lists start and end time for each period) and I'm assuming the times are central time. Do the times in the two links also correspond to central, or do I need to shift? Are the times listed hour start or hour ending? 

I'd like to total up by usage and see how bad it'll be... 

[Ryan Ziolko]

Hi,

Yes, you can look at your usage for that hour.  PJM reports times in EPT (Eastern Prevailing Time, which basically means PDT during daylight saving time, and EST the rest of the year) with the hour ending.  So for 17:00 EPT, ComEd users will be looking at 3-4pm CDT.  

Once ComEd gets their numbers, you can check your PLC (personal load contribution) with your account number at this site: https://secure.comed.com/MyAccount/MyService/Pages/UsageDataTool.aspx.  They take the PLC and feed that into a formula to come up with your capacity charge.  IIRC, there are some magic values in there.

Later,

Ryan

[Ty Curtin]

Wait for the ComEd dates....they look to be different than the PJM.

[Ryan Ziolko]

And here they are (that 10/23/2018 publish date is BS, they just showed up)...

ComEd Five (5) Peaks for 2018

Date      (CPT HE) ComEd Zonal Load

6/18/2018 16:00    21,349.370

6/29/2018 17:00    20,995.948

8/27/2018 16:00    20,374.371

6/30/2018 17:00    19,954.452

9/4/2018  17:00    19,840.488

[Ryan Ziolko]

It's interesting that the ComEd zonal load appears to be the direct metered load, not "weather adjusted" like the PJM numbers.  I haven't been able to find enough info on the weather adjustment procedure to predict the PJM values.  There is a slide deck that gives a high level overview, but there wasn't enough detail.

Later,

Ryan

[Rex Irby]

Lets hope Sat 6/30/18 17:00  is incorrect - my AC was at full blast since Saturdays are not restricted on my HVAC programming - 3.58KW - Super ouch - AC Cycling was not activated either!!

[Wayne Smith]

Please bear with me as I'm a little slow sometimes. The 5 PJM peak load times listed at https://www.pjm.com/~/media/planning/res-adeq/load-forecast/20181017-summer-2018-peaks-and-5cps.ashx are for EST. So 17:00 means 4PM CST, so I would use hour ending 4PM data from hourly pricing program data download?

Similarly, the ComEd 5 peaks are lsited already in CST, so 17:00 would be 5PM CST, so I would use hour ending 5PM data from hourly pricing program data download?

I understand the hindsight nature of peak load, but it still boggles my mind that the hourly rates do not correlate well with these peaks.

[Ryan Ziolko]

Hi Wayne,

That's right PJM using EPT and ComEd using CPT, and they both list "hour ending".  So a PJM peak at HE 17:00 EPT would mean you'd look at 3-4pm CDT on your usage.  They like to use "prevailing" time, which basically means either standard time or daylight saving time... whichever is in effect on that date.

High demand doesn't necessarily mean high prices in a given region.  Demand can high, but cheaper sources of energy (like wind, solar, and nuclear) could have been producing at high levels (you can read about dispatch rates).  High prices can be due to "congestion" on the grid, where the big DC switching points are loaded and they aren't able to get cheap(er) electricity from one region to another.  The more you look into the grid and energy markets, the more you'll be amazed that a light turns on when you flip a switch.  ;-)

Later,

Ryan

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