A protest on the Federal Power Regulatory Fee by American Electrical Energy and Exelon to an interconnection service settlement that might facilitate offering energy straight from a nuclear energy plant to an Amazon information middle is a “misguided try to stifle this innovation,” Talen Power stated on Thursday (June 27).
Talen in March stated it had agreed to promote a deliberate information middle campus in Pennsylvania to Amazon.com’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Internet Companies, for $650 million. Talen intends to promote energy to AWS from its 2,228 MW stake within the close by Susquehanna nuclear energy plant.
To facilitate the sale of energy to the co-located information middle, the PJM Interconnection earlier this month requested FERC to approve an amended interconnection service settlement, or ISA, among the many grid operator, Susquehanna Nuclear and PPL Electrical Utilities.
AEP and Exelon – on behalf of their utilities – on Monday challenged the ISA, partly as a result of they declare it might trigger an as much as $140 million annual shift in transmission prices onto PJM ratepayers.
The information within the utility firms’ protest are unsuitable and the authorized positions in it are “demonstrably infirm,” Talen stated. “Almost all the problems raised by Exelon and AEP are usually not topic to FERC oversight, as a result of transmission shouldn’t be implicated.”
PPL, a regulated utility, agrees that Talen has the fitting to promote energy on to AWS and signed an ISA modification that provides PPL reliability assurances, Talen stated. PJM additionally agrees the ISA is acceptable, based on the Houston-based unbiased energy producer.
“We are going to transfer with dispatch to resolve this matter rapidly at FERC,” Talen stated.
It doesn’t seem that the protest by AEP and Exelon poses a major danger to the ISA, based on ClearView Power Companions. “Subsequently, we additionally don’t suppose this protest will halt the rising curiosity in information facilities to co-locate with technology amenities,” the analysis agency stated in a be aware to its shoppers on Thursday.
The AEP and Exelon claims about potential price shifts from the ISA association look like primarily primarily based on whether or not energy from PJM’s market would ever function “backup” energy if the Susquehanna plant couldn’t ship electrical energy to the information middle, ClearView analysts stated.
“The ISA suggests this might not occur,” they stated. “Consequently, we’re skeptical the fee would reject the submitting, or that FERC would essentially grant the request for a full-blown administrative listening to.”
This text initially appeared in Utility Dive.
