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You know your lighting retrofit or energy efficiency project is saving you money, but did you know it can also generate a new revenue stream?\u00a0Imagine additional income without any additional risk or investment that could continue for years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"

You know your lighting retrofit or energy efficiency project is saving you money, but did you know it can also generate a new revenue stream?\u00a0Imagine additional income without any additional risk or investment that could continue for up to four years. Within the PJM Interconnection, energy efficiency (EE) projects, originally done to reduce energy usage and maintenance costs, provide a payback and increase the profitability of the company \u2013 can now also serve as a source of additional revenue for your organization.\u00a0<\/p>

The PJM Capacity Market<\/strong><\/p>

PJM is the Regional Transmission Operator in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, as well as parts of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, and Tennessee. It is their responsibility, throughout those areas, to ensure that the electric grid has enough capacity to meet the demand for electricity. To do this, PJM has developed the PJM Reliability Pricing Model (RPM).<\/p>

The RPM is used to generate long-term pricing signals to capacity resources and Load Serving Entities (LSE) in a manner that is consistent with the PJM Regional Transmission Expansion Planning Process (RTEPP). Or more simply, it helps PJM determine where additional capacity is needed with respect to the electric transmission system, while also providing incentives for those need capacity resources to be developed.<\/p>

Traditionally, electricity generators (nuclear, coal and natural gas fueled power plants) have been the primary participants, committing their electricity output to the grid through an auction process. In return, PJM has compensated these generators financially for their capacity commitments and the lights have stayed on.<\/p>

But with fewer new power plants being constructed, older ones facing retirement, and certain planned transmission projects unable to get off the ground, grid congestion is not only a continuing threat but a growing one that can seriously impede the efficient distribution of electricity that Americans have come to expect.<\/p>

To combat these circumstances that have left PJM with less generation resources to meet electricity demand plus the 15% reserve capacity they need, PJM has begun to reward those that help reduce electricity demand just as they would a generator supplying more electricity.\u00a0\u00a0After all, a penny saved is a penny earned, right?\u00a0\u00a0EE projects and Demand Response (DR) participants, both of which reduce electricity demand (EE does it permanently and DR for up to 10 hours), are now considered capacity resources by PJM and are therefore eligible to participate in the RPM and receive capacity payments.<\/p>

What\u2019s a Capacity Payment Worth?<\/strong><\/p>

That really depends on many factors, such as what region of PJM you\u2019re located in and the availability of capacity resources.<\/p>