A power marketer's experience with Fixed Transmission Rights

Power Team is a division in PECO Energy Company, an investor owned utility located in southeastern Pennsylvania, that markets, trades, and procures energy for the wholesale marketplace and PECO's retail customers. PECO Energy Company is a member of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) Interconnection's power pool that is responsible for the operation and control of the bulk power system throughout major portions of five Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia. Generation owners submit bids to the PJM Spot Market, and the generating units are subject to a security constrained economic dispatch to minimize the generation production cost in PJM. The results of the dispatch are transformed into a pricing scheme called the Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP) for energy purchase and sales in the PJM Market. Along with the implementation of LMP, PJM developed a financial entitlement called Fixed Transmission Right (FTR) for Load Serving Entities (LSEs) and transmission customers of PJM to protect them from increased cost due to transmission congestion. While FTR has been designed to provide transmission customers protection from increased cost due to transmission congestion, it has been demonstrated that FTR can be a financial liability. Also, allocation of FTRs can be a complicated process in a situation such as retail customer choice. As Power Team is responsible for all PECO generation requirements, Power Team considers selection of FTR as a risk management function to minimize PECO's exposure to transmission congestions.