PJM as the largest US system operator – Introduction and current debates (in German only)

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Brandt, Robert; Magdalena Magosch und Raffaele Piria (adelphi) 2018: PJM as the largest US system operator – Introduction and current debates (in German only). Berlin: adelphi.

PJM Interconnection was the first and is the largest independent power system operator in the US. It operates competitive wholesale electricity markets and the power system serving an area encompassing 14 different states that are characterized by a big variety of energy, environmental and climate policy preferences. In this context, some central debates of US energy policy become particularly visible.

Some developments are triggered by technological and economic trends that also occur in other parts of the world. These trends interact with the energy policy instruments of the federal states and of the federal government as well as with the PJM markets. Especially the capacity market requires repeated, complex readjustments. In this multi-layered process, a range of stakeholders strive for influence, including PJM-RTO, the regulators and governments of the PJM states, the federal regulator FERC, the federal government as well as business stakeholders and civil society. The increasing intensity of some debates reflects the general polarization of US politics.

This study, in German only, has been conceived for a non-US public of energy policy and power sector experts. It provides an overview of the institutional setting, the power system, the market design and the energy policies in the PJM market and states as well as of selected current debates. It is released on the occasion of the first German-PJM States Energy Trends Forum taking place Oct. 31 - Nov. 1 2018 in Chicago. This conference is hold by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and the Organization of PJM States (OPSI), supported by adelphi, the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) and the German American Chamber of Commerce (GACC).

For a closer look at how Germany and US states in the PJM region are addressing several shared opportunities and challenges in their competitive power markets please refer to the following study:

Power systems in the 2020s: What can Germany and the PJM region learn from each other?

Further publications in the series