The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected Oklo’s recent request to reinstate its project to PJM’s interconnection study cycle in a Sept. 24 order.
FERC denied Oklo’s complaint, which was filed Aug. 27, because Oklo failed to show that PJM violated any of its procedures when dropping the project from its study cycle. PJM is a regional organization that oversees the grid for parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia.
The federal agency also found that Oklo failed to provide PJM with the project’s entire requested maximum facility output, which also led PJM to drop the advanced nuclear company off this study cycle, FERC noted in its order.
“PJM notes that to address certain deficiencies highlighted in the May 15 deficiency notice with the PSSE [power system simulator for engineering] model, rather than cure the model, Oklo exacerbated the deficiencies with the dynamic model by deleting the safety components for the synchronous units in the model,” the document said.
“As a result, PJM found that Oklo’s cure model only demonstrated that the 300 MW IBR [inverter-based resources] (fuel cell) portion of the 750 MW facility would be stable, rather than showing that the entire 750 MW project, including the nuclear and natural gas units would be stable,” according to the document.
FERC said PJM’s decision to leave Oklo’s project off of the incoming interconnection study cycle after not addressing concerns in supplementary documents was consistent with its rules. PJM conducts an interconnection study to analyze if a new power plant or large generator can connect to its electric grid without disrupting other systems and other generation.
Oklo’s project, which was excluded from the complaint, would have been a mixed technology project in Virginia capable of generating up to 750 megawatts of electricity. The project would have been made up of “150 MW of advanced nuclear generation, 300 MW of fuel cell generation, and 300 MW of natural gas generation,” according to the order.
While Oklo’s complaint was denied, FERC said that the company is still capable of addressing matters in its application and submitting it to a later PJM study cycle.
Oklo said in its complaint that PJM’s decision to keep its project for this interconnection cycle could lead to a delay of “at least fourteen months which may have adverse consequences” for the project.”
FERC said Oklo could also pursue PJM’s expedited interconnection process, which will remain open until Dec. 31, 2027.