On April 24, 2015, FERC approved PJM Interconnection LLC's ("PJM") request for waiver of its tariff to delay its 2015 Base Residual Auction ("BRA") for the 2018-2019 delivery year.  As a result of the waiver, PJM's BRA will not take place as originally scheduled, but rather during a week that is 30 to 75 days after FERC rules on the merits of PJM's pending capacity performance proposal, but no later than the week of August 10-14, 2015.

On December 12, 2014, PJM submitted a series of proposed capacity performance tariff revisions that would apply to its upcoming BRA.  However, FERC issued a deficiency letter requesting additional information before issuing a decision on the tariff revisions.  As a result of the deficiency letter and the resulting delay of a decision on the tariff revisions, PJM requested the delay of the BRA (see April 18, 2015 edition of the WER).

In approving PJM's waiver, FERC noted that the request satisfied FERC's waiver requirements by limiting the scope of the waiver and remedying a concrete problem.  In addition, FERC also stated that granting the waiver request would not have undesirable consequences, in contrast to protesters' concerns.  In explaining its reasoning, FERC stated that by delaying the waiver, FERC would have additional time to consider PJM's deficiency response, as well as comments on the deficiency response.  Furthermore, FERC stated that while delaying the BRA could increase some participants' costs of participating in the BRA, it nonetheless agreed with PJM that it was important for FERC to consider the entire record before conducting the upcoming BRA.

A copy of the order is available here.

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