MARKET MONITOR FINDS PJM WHOLESALE ELECTRICITY MARKETS COMPETITIVE

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May 09, 2024, 12:15 ET

2024 Quarterly State of the Market Report for PJM: January through March

EAGLEVILLE, Pa., May 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- PJM Interconnection's wholesale electric energy market produced competitive results during the first three months of 2024, according to the 2024 Quarterly State of the Market Report for PJM: January through March released today by Monitoring Analytics, LLC, the Independent Market Monitor for PJM.

The Independent Market Monitor, Joseph Bowring, announced findings of the report today. The report is the Independent Market Monitor's assessment of the competitiveness of the wholesale electricity markets managed by PJM in 13 states and the District of Columbia. The report includes analysis of market structure, participant behavior and market performance for each of the PJM markets.

"Our analysis concludes that the results of the PJM Energy Market were competitive in the first three months of 2024," Bowring said.

Energy prices increased in the first three months of 2024 from the first three months of 2023. The real-time load-weighted average LMP in the first three months of 2024 increased $0.73 per MWh, or 2.4 percent from the first three months of 2023, from $30.28 per MWh to $31.01 per MWh. Of the $0.73 per MWh increase, there was a $1.03 decrease in the cost of fuel and consumables and a $0.55 per MWh increase in the cost of emissions allowances. The real-time hourly average load in the first three months of 2024 increased by 2.5 percent from the first three months of 2023, from 87,311 MWh to 89,478 MWh.

The total price of wholesale power decreased from $53.49 per MWh in the first three months of 2023 to $53.48 per MWh in the first three months of 2024, a decrease of 0.01 percent. Energy, capacity and transmission charges are the three largest components of the total price of wholesale power, comprising 96.3 percent of the total price per MWh in the first three months of 2024. Starting in the third quarter of 2019, the cost of transmission per MWh of wholesale power has been higher than the cost of capacity.

Energy prices in PJM in the first three months of 2024 were set, on average, by units operating at, or close to, their short run marginal costs, although this was not always the case. This is evidence of generally competitive behavior and competitive market outcomes, although high markups for some marginal units did affect prices.

In the first three months of 2024, generation from coal units increased 1.6 percent, generation from natural gas units increased 7.7 percent, generation from oil units decreased 0.9 percent, generation from wind units increased 0.7 percent, and generation from solar units increased 49.2 percent compared to the first three months of 2023.

Net revenue is a key measure of overall market performance as well as a measure of the incentive to invest in generation to serve PJM markets. Theoretical energy market net revenues increased by 106 percent for a new combustion turbine, increased by 53 percent for a new combined cycle, increased by 629 percent for a new coal unit, decreased by 2 percent for a new nuclear plant, decreased by 8 percent for a new onshore wind installation, decreased by 2 percent for a new offshore wind installation and decreased by 15 percent for a new solar installation.

Total energy uplift charges increased by $57.2 million, or 296.9 percent, in the first three months of 2024 compared to the first three months of 2023, from $19.3 million to $76.5 million.

When there are binding transmission constraints and locational energy price differences, customers pay more for energy than generation is paid to produce that energy. The difference is congestion revenue. Congestion revenue belongs to customers and should be returned to customers. Total congestion increased by $145.5 million or 82.9 percent, from $175.5 million in the first three months of 2023 to $321.0 million in the first three months of 2024. But only 83.4 percent of total congestion paid by customers for the first ten months of the 2023/2024 planning period was returned to customers through the ARR and self-scheduled FTR revenues offset. The goal of the FTR market design should be to ensure that customers have the rights to 100 percent of the congestion that customers pay. Load has received $4.0 billion less in congestion revenues than load should have received, from the 2011/2012 planning period through the first ten months of the 2023/2024 planning period, as a result of flaws in the PJM FTR market design.

The Independent Market Monitor (also known as the IMM, the Market Monitoring Unit or the MMU) evaluates the operation of PJM's wholesale markets to identify ineffective market rules and tariff provisions, proposes improvements to market rules and tariff provisions when needed, monitors compliance with and implementation of the market rules, identifies potential anticompetitive behavior by market participants and provides comprehensive market analysis critical for informed policy and decision making. Joseph Bowring, the Market Monitor, ensures the independence and objectivity of the monitoring program.

For a copy of the State of the Market Report, visit Monitoring Analytics at: https://www.monitoringanalytics.com/reports/PJM_State_of_the_Market/2024.shtml

SOURCE Monitoring Analytics, LLC