Potomac Edison school‑bus vehicle‑to‑grid pilot discussion deferred for a written order

The Public Service Commission on Sept. 3 took under advisement Potomac Edison’s implementation plan for a vehicle‑to‑grid electric school bus pilot and said staff will issue a written order specifying evaluation metrics and reporting requirements.

Michael Spiegelman, commission staff, described the filing as Potomac Edison’s implementation plan for the pilot required by commission order in case work on the docket. The filing included proposed tariff pages, a budget, site‑selection plans and program evaluation language.

Isaac Lindenbaum, representing the Office of People's Counsel (OPC), told commissioners that the company’s implementation plan identified the pilot’s primary goal as assessing vehicle‑to‑grid dispatch to provide distribution system relief but did not include evaluation metrics tied to that goal. Lindenbaum urged the commission to require metrics that would allow the pilot to demonstrate whether the goal is achieved.

Jessica Grama, Potomac Edison counsel, said the company had proposed metrics and discussed them with parties during multiple meetings. She objected to OPC’s late filing of two additional metrics and proposed tweaks to make the metrics more meaningful and practicable. "We suggested providing circuit peaks for event days versus a counterfactual because historical peaks over an entire year are not an apples‑to‑apples comparison," Grama said. She added that the company could provide data only for circuits with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and that installing SCADA for the pilot was outside the pilot’s budget.

Mark Zuka, chief technical witness for Potomac Edison, said the company expects to have SCADA on roughly two‑thirds to three‑quarters of its circuits and that providing a year’s worth of daily load shapes would produce a very large and difficult‑to‑present dataset.

Commissioners pressed Potomac Edison and OPC on the tradeoffs between comprehensive year‑long data and more targeted comparisons such as event day data and adjacent non‑event days. Staff said it was in general agreement with Potomac Edison’s proposal. The commission chair concluded that the record needed a clearer, written articulation of the precise metrics and ordered staff to prepare a written order; the item was taken under advisement and deferred to that written order.

The commission did not vote to approve the pilot at the administrative meeting; instead, it requested a written order that will specify evaluation metrics and the scope of required circuit‑level data. Staff said the company and OPC should provide a written version of their compromise proposal for inclusion in the order.

Commissioners and parties acknowledged the pilot’s goal of assessing distribution‑level relief from vehicle‑to‑grid operations but emphasized limitations: SCADA availability will limit the set of circuits for which the company can provide detailed load‑shape data, and installation of missing SCADA was not proposed as part of the pilot budget.

Potomac Edison’s counsel said the requested additions to the metrics would not impact the pilot budget if the commission adopted OPC’s recommendations as modified by the company; OPC said consecutive‑day comparisons would be an acceptable compromise to a full year of data. Staff and the company will submit the agreed language for the commission’s written order.

The commission did not set a public date for the written order at the meeting; staff said it will issue the order relatively soon and that the commission would be precise in directing what data and metrics are required.