AF2-356 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 CPV Backbone Solar, LLC, the Interconnection Customer (IC), and PJM Interconnection, LLC (PJM), Transmission Provider (TP). The Interconnected Transmission Owner (ITO) is Appalachian Power.

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.

An Interconnection Customer with a proposed new Customer Facility that has a Maximum Facility Output equal to or greater than 100 MW shall install and maintain, at its expense, phasor measurement units (PMUs). See Section 8.5.3 of Appendix 2 to the Interconnection Service Agreement as well as section 4.3 of PJM Manual 14D for additional information.

The Interconnection Customer (IC), has proposed a generating facility located in Garrett County, Maryland. The installed facilities will have a total capability of 175.0 MW with 105.0 MW of this output being recognized by PJM as Capacity. The proposed in-service date for this project is Thursday, December 01, 2022. This study does not imply a TO commitment to this in-service date.

The interconnection of the project at the Primary POI will be accomplished by constructing a new 138 kV three (3) breaker ring bus substation and looping the Albright – Mt. Zion 138 kV Line into the new substation. The new substation will be located approximately 23.6 miles from Albright 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. The project will also require Non-Direct Connection upgrades at Albright and Cross School substations.

Attachment 1 shows a one-line diagram of the proposed primary Direct Connection facilities for the AF2-356 generation project to connect to the FirstEnergy (“FE”) Transmission System. The IC will be responsible for constructing 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.

The interconnection of the project at the Primary POI will be accomplished by constructing a new 138 kV three (3) breaker ring bus substation and looping the Albright – Mt. Zion 138 kV Line into the new substation. The new substation will be located approximately 23.6 miles from Albright 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. The project will also require Non-Direct Connection upgrades at Albright and Cross School 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 32 to 32 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 AF2-356 project did not contribute to any overloads on the FE transmission <100 kV system.

System Protection

The IC must design it’s 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.

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 AF2-356 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 AF2-356 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 non-synchronous 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 175.0 MW (Capacity 105.0 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:

235504 to 235484 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'AP-P2-3-PE-500-018D'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 235103 CKT 1    /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BLACKO     500.0
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 235445 CKT 2    /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BEDNGT     138.0
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 235445 CKT 4    /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BEDNGT     138.0
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 237000 CKT ZB   /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BEDNGT CAP 500.0
END

235504 to 235484 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'AP-P2-3-PE-500-018C'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 235103 CKT 1   /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BLACKO     500.0
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 235445 CKT 1   /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BEDNGT     138.0
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235101 TO BUS 235445 CKT 3   /*01BEDNGT     500.0 - 01BEDNGT     138.0
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.

235492 to 235518 ckt 1

CONTINGENCY 'AP-P1-2-WP-500-006'
 DISCONNECT BRANCH FROM BUS 235108 TO BUS 235103 CKT 1   /*01HATFLD     500.0 - 01BLACKO     500.0
END

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 completed, no mitigation needed.

Based on the Impact Study data provided, the AF2-356 model met both the 0.95 lagging and the 0.95 leading power factor requirement at the high side of the main transformer.

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

Files

• AF2-356 Stability Study Report Rev0_FINAL.docx --