PJM power plant owners could owe $2B in penalties from winter storm failures

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The largest U.S. power grid operator, PJM Interconnection, said Thursday it is investigating why power plant owners were unable to supply needed power during last month's big winter storm when customers narrowly avoided outages.

Generators that were unable to deliver increased electricity during three peak demand days in late December could face as much as $2B in penalties, according to an initial estimate released by the grid operator.

Nearly 46K MW, or 23.2% of PJM's generating fleet, was unexpectedly offline on December 24, mainly because of plant equipment that did not operate and fuel supply problems, a PJM senior manager said during a presentation to the grid operator.

Gas-fired generation accounted for ~70% of the unplanned outages, which could lead to political fallout, according to ClearView Energy Partners, as "natural gas generators have often argued that they are more flexible and more reliable."

Among the 1,000-plus members of PJM are companies affiliated with American Electric Power (AEP), AES Corp. (AES), Algonquin Power (AQN), Allete (ALE), Alliant Energy (LNT), Altus Power (AMPS), Avangrid (AGR), Brookfield Energy (BAM), Consolidated Edison (ED), Constellation Energy (CEG), Consumers Energy (CMS), Dominion Energy (D), DTE Energy (DTE), Duke Energy (DUK), Evergy (EVRG), Exelon (EXC), New Jersey Resources (NJR), NextEra Energy (NEE), PPL Corp. (PPL), PSEG (PEG), South Jersey Industries (SJI), Southern Co. (SO), UGI Corp. (UGI)

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