Overheard at EPSA Competitive Power Summit 2022
Frustrations over RTOs
The role of RTOs was a recurrent topic. During the first of five panel discussions, PJM CEO Manu Asthana and Devin Hartman, energy and environmental policy director for the R Street Institute, acknowledged frustrations over the RTO stakeholder process.
“The stakeholder process is hard, because you have a lot of really smart stakeholders who have their own economic interests, and their own agenda; they’re at the table, pushing,” Asthana said. “But I also think the stakeholder process is necessary, [so] please continue participating, keeping in mind … there’s a compromise that we’re going to have to come to [so] that hopefully everyone will get what they need. Not everyone will get all of what they want, to quote the Rolling Stones.”
“Market design is anything but a clear fix. Even to the top minds in the field, no one’s going to agree on all the particulars,” Hartman said. “But this debate is worth having. … The value of organized market structures is actually increasing over time. So don’t let the frustrations over the debate on the market rules boil over. … I think a lot of times, there’s some misfires in our public dialogue.”
