PJM filings set study milestones for transition cycles one and two

PJM closed its legacy serial queue and moved the accumulated backlog into transition cycles before opening its first cluster formed entirely under the revised process. That sequencing matters more than the reform's headline design.

Transition Cycle 2 carries projects that entered under the old rules into a study framework built for the new ones. Until those projects either sign interconnection service agreements or withdraw, capacity in the cluster study track is committed to legacy positions rather than to new requests.

The practical consequence for a developer holding a new-process position is that the binding constraint on schedule is not the published study timeline for their own cluster. It is the withdrawal rate ahead of them. Network upgrade cost allocation within a cluster is a shared, re-studied quantity: when a large position drops, the remaining projects inherit a restudy and a revised cost estimate.

PJM publishes cycle status and study milestones through its planning pages. Those postings, rather than any secondary summary, are the record a financing counterparty will ask to see.

What to watch: the ratio of executed agreements to withdrawals at the close of each transition cycle, which is the first observable test of whether first-ready, first-served changes behaviour in the largest United States market.