AE2-316 System Impact Study Report

This System Impact Study Report (SIS) has been prepared in accordance with the PJM Open Access Transmission Tariff, 205, as well as the System Impact Study Agreement between Walden Solar PA Jefferson LLC, the Interconnection Customer (IC), and PJM Interconnection, LLC (PJM), Transmission Provider (TP). The Interconnected Transmission Owner (ITO) is Appalachian Power.

Revision 1: January 2023 - The report was revised to reflect the results of PJM's retool study. Final scope and cost estimates will be provided as part of the facilities study.

The intent of the System Impact is to determine a plan, with approximate cost and construction time estimates, to connect the subject generation interconnection project to the PJM network at a location specified by the Interconnection Customer. As a requirement for interconnection, the Interconnection Customer may be responsible for the cost of constructing: Network Upgrades, which are facility additions, or upgrades to existing facilities, that are needed to maintain the reliability of the PJM system. All facilities required for interconnection of a generation interconnection project must be designed to meet the technical specifications (on PJM web site) for the appropriate transmission owner.

In some instances an Interconnection Customer may not be responsible for 100% of the identified network upgrade cost because other transmission network uses, e.g. another generation interconnection or merchant transmission upgrade, may also contribute to the need for the same network reinforcement. The possibility of sharing the reinforcement costs with other projects may be identified in the Feasibility Study, but the actual allocation will be deferred until the System Impact Study is performed.

The System Impact study estimates do not include the feasibility, cost, or time required to obtain property rights and permits for construction of the required facilities. The project developer is responsible for the right of way, real estate, and construction permit issues. For properties currently owned by Transmission Owners, the costs may be included in the study.

The Interconnection Customer (IC), has proposed a generating facility located in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. The installed facilities will have a total capability of 90.0 MW with 41.2 MW of this output being recognized by PJM as Capacity. The proposed in-service date for this project is Thursday, December 31, 2020. This study does not imply a TO commitment to this in-service date.

AE2-316 will interconnect with the West Penn Power transmission system by constructing a new 138 kV three-breaker ring bus substation and looping the Squab Hollow – Brookville 138 kV line into the new station.  The new substation will be located approximately 22 miles from Squab Hollow substation. The IC will be responsible for acquiring all easements, properties, and permits that may be required to construct both the new interconnection switching station and the associated facilities. The IC will also be responsible for the rough grade of the property and an access road to the proposed three-breaker ring bus site. This project will also require Non-Direct Connection upgrades at Squab Hollow, Brookville, and Armstrong substations.

Attachment 1 shows a one-line diagram of the proposed primary Direct Connection facilities for the AE2-316 generation project to connect to the FirstEnergy (“FE”) transmission system. Attachment 2 provides the proposed location for the point of interconnection. IC will be responsible for constructing all the facilities on its side of the POI, including the Attachment Facilities which connect the generator to the FE transmission system’s Direct Connection facilities.

The project may be responsible for a contribution to the following costs:

Note 1: PJM Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) section 217.3A outline cost allocation rules. The rules are further clarified in PJM Manual 14A Attachment B. The allocation of costs for a network upgrade will start with the first Queue project to cause the need for the upgrade. Later queue projects will receive cost allocation contingent on their contribution to the violation and are allocated to the queues that have not closed less than 5 years following the execution of the first Interconnection Service Agreement which identifies the need for this upgrade.

Note 2: For customers with System Reinforcements listed: If your present cost allocation to a System Reinforcement indicates $0, then please be aware that as changes to the interconnection process occur, such as prior queued projects withdrawing from the queue, reducing in size, etc, the cost responsibilities can change and a cost allocation may be assigned to your project. In addition, although your present cost allocation to a System Reinforcement is presently $0, your project may need this system reinforcement completed to be deliverable to the PJM system. If your project comes into service prior to completion of the system reinforcement, an interim deliverability study for your project will be required.

AE2-316 will interconnect with the West Penn Power transmission system by constructing a new 138 kV three-breaker ring bus substation and looping the Squab Hollow – Brookville 138 kV line into the new station. The new substation will be located approximately 22 miles from Squab Hollow substation. The IC will be responsible for acquiring all easements, properties, and permits that may be required to construct both the new interconnection switching station and the associated facilities. The IC will also be responsible for the rough grade of the property and an access road to the proposed three-breaker ring bus site. This project will also require Non–Direct Connection upgrades at Squab Hollow, Brookville, and Armstrong substations.

The total preliminary cost estimate is given in the table below. These costs do not include CIAC Tax Gross-up.

Based on the scope of work for the interconnection facilities, it is expected to take a range of 19 to 19 month(s) after the signing of an Interconnection Construction Service Agreement (as this is a FERC connection) and construction kickoff call to complete the installation of the physical connection work. This assumes that there will be no environmental issues with any of the new properties associated with this project, that there will be no delays in acquiring the necessary permits for implementing the defined interconnection work, and that all system outages will be allowed when requested.

The schedule for any required Network Impact Reinforcements will be more clearly identified in future study phases. The estimated time to complete each of the required reinforcements is identified in the "System Reinforcements" section of the report.

FE performed an analysis of its underlying transmission <100 kV system. The AE2-316 project did not contribute to any overloads on the FE transmission <100 kV system.

System Protection

The IC must design its Customer Facilities in accordance with all applicable standards, including the standards in FE’s “Requirements for Transmission Connected Facilities” document located at: http://www.pjm.com/planning/design-engineering/to-tech-standards/private-firstenergy.aspx. Preliminary Protection requirements will be provided as part of the Facilities Study. Detailed Protection Requirements will be provided once the project enters the construction phase.

The original one-line diagram provided by the IC depicted the correct GSU transformer winding configuration, as outlined in section 14.2.6 of FE’s “Requirements for Transmission Connected Facilities.” The GSU transformer must have a wye grounded connection on the high (utility) side and a delta connection on the low (generator) side connection.

Compliance Issues and Interconnection Customer Requirements

The proposed Customer Facilities must be designed in accordance with FE’s “Requirements for Transmission Connected Facilities” document located at: http://www.pjm.com/planning/design-engineering/to-tech-standards/private-firstenergy.aspx. In particular, the IC is responsible for the following:

1. The purchase and installation of a fully rated 138 kV circuit breaker to protect the AE2-316 generator lead line. A single circuit breaker must be used to protect this line; if the project has several GSU transformers, the individual GSU transformer breakers cannot be used to protect this line.
2. The purchase and installation of the minimum required FE generation interconnection relaying and control facilities. This includes over/under voltage protection, over/under frequency protection, and zero sequence voltage protection relays.
3. The purchase and installation of supervisory control and data acquisition (“SCADA”) equipment to provide information in a compatible format to the FE Transmission System Control Center.
4. Compliance with the FE and PJM generator power factor and voltage control requirements.
5. The execution of a back-up service agreement to serve the customer load supplied from the AE2-316 generation project metering point when the units are out-of-service. This assumes the intent of the IC is to net the generation with the load.

The IC will also be required to meet all PJM, ReliabilityFirst, and NERC reliability criteria and operating procedures for standards compliance. For example, the IC will need to properly locate and report the over and under voltage and over and under frequency system protection elements for its units as well as the submission of the generator model and protection data required to satisfy the PJM and ReliabilityFirst audits.  Failure to comply with these requirements may result in a disconnection of service if the violation is found to compromise the reliability of the FE system.

Power Factor Requirements

The IC shall design its Solar Customer Facility with the ability to maintain a power factor of at least 0.95 leading (absorbing VARs) to 0.95 lagging (supplying VARs) measured at the high side of the facility substation transformer(s) connected to the FE transmission system.

The Interconnection Customer will be required to install equipment necessary to provide Revenue Metering (KWH, KVARH) and real time data (KW, KVAR) for IC's generating Resource. See PJM Manuals M-01 and M14D, and PJM Tariff Section 8 of Attachment O.

The solar generation facility shall provide the Transmission Provider with site-specific meteorological data including:

• Temperature (degrees Fahrenheit)
• Atmospheric Pressure (hectopascals)
• Irradiance
• Forced outage data

The IC will be required to comply with all Interconnected Transmission Owner's revenue metering requirements for generation interconnection customers located at the following link: PJM - Transmission Owner Engineering & Construction Standards.

The Queue Project was evaluated as a 90.0 MW (Capacity 41.2 MW) injection in the area. Project was evaluated for compliance with applicable reliability planning criteria (PJM, NERC, NERC Regional Reliability Councils, and Transmission Owners). Potential Summer peak period network impacts were as follows:

200593 to 200811 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'PN-P2-3-PN-345-003A-B10'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 200826 TO BUS 200595 CKT 1   /*26HANDSMLK   345.0 - 26WAYNE      345.0
 OPEN BRANCH FROM BUS 200598 TO BUS 200595 CKT 2         /*26WAYNE      115.0 - 26WAYNE      345.0
END

200593 to 200811 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'PN-P2-3-PN-345-003A-B45'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 200826 TO BUS 200595 CKT 1   /*26HANDSMLK   345.0 - 26WAYNE      345.0
 OPEN BRANCH FROM BUS 200598 TO BUS 200595 CKT 1         /*26WAYNE      115.0 - 26WAYNE      345.0
END

200810 to 999428 ckt 3

CONTINGENCY 'PN-P2-3-PN-500-001F'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 200011 TO BUS 200005 CKT 1          /*KEYSTONE     500.0 - CONEM-GH     500.0
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 200011 TO BUS 200810 TO BUS 200907 CKT 4 /*KEYSTONE     500.0 - 26KEYSTONE   230.0 - 26KEYSTN#4    20.0
 REDUCE BUS 200011 SHUNT BY 100 PERCENT                         /*KEYSTONE     500.0
END

PJM also studied the delivery of the energy portion of this interconnection request. Any problems identified below are likely to result in operational restrictions to the project under study. The developer can proceed with network upgrades to eliminate the operational restriction at their discretion by submitting a Merchant Transmission Interconnection request.

Note: Only the most severely overloaded conditions are listed below. There is no guarantee of full delivery of energy for this project by fixing only the conditions listed in this section. With a Transmission Interconnection Request, a subsequent analysis will be performed which shall study all overload conditions associated with the overloaded element(s) identified.

200767 to 200795 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'ATSI_P1-2_CEI-345-719T_SRT-A'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 239082 TO BUS 200599 CKT 1   /*02S8-ATT     345.0 - 26ERIE W     345.0
END

200767 to 200795 ckt 1

200675 to 200924 ckt 1

200675 to 200924 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'PL:03:P12:001029'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 208009 TO BUS 208054 CKT 1   /*LACK         230.0 - LAEN         230.0
 DISCONNECT BUS 208054                                   /*LAEN         230.0
END

200593 to 200811 ckt 1

200924 to 200706 ckt 1

At this time winter peak analysis not required for this project.

At this time winter peak analysis not required for this project.

At this time light load analysis not required for this project.

At this time light load analysis not required for this project.

PJM Short Circuit Analysis did not identify any new overduty breakers or >3% contribution to previously identified overduty breakers.

Stability Analysis complete with no violations. See complete stability report under Attachments.

Reactive Power Analysis complete with all power factor requirements met. Refer to stability report under Attachments for more details.

Steady State Voltage analysis is not required for this queue project at this time.

The Queue Projects below are listed in one or more dispatch for the overloads identified in your report. These projects contribute to the loading of the overloaded facilities identified in your report. The percent overload of a facility and cost allocation you may have towards a particular reinforcement could vary depending on the action of these earlier projects. The status of each project at the time of the analysis is presented in the table. This list may change as earlier projects withdraw or modify their requests. This table is valid for load flow analyses only.

One-Line Diagram

Project Location

Files

• AE2-316-3-3 Dynamic Analysis Report.doc -- AE2-316 Dynamic Analysis Report