The budgeted cost of the work the baseline scheduled to be complete by a given date. Planned value = budget at completion × planned percent complete.
Planned value answers how much work should have been done by now, expressed in money. The project level formula is the budget at completion multiplied by the planned percent complete, so a £500,000 project scheduled to be 35 percent done at month four has a planned value of £175,000; the rigorous version sums the budgets of the work packages the baseline scheduled to finish by that date. Planned value is a property of the baseline rather than of the plan being worked to this week, so a rebaseline silently changes the meaning of every variance reported before it.
See also
The budgeted cost of the work actually completed at a given date. Earned value prices finished work at baseline rates, never at what the work really cost.
The costs genuinely incurred for the work counted as earned value, up to a given date. Actual cost only means something when it covers the same scope earned value covers.
Where this comes up
Two ratios off one earned value figure. SPI divides it by the plan and reads schedule. CPI divides it by the bill and reads cost. Below 1 is bad news in both, for different reasons.
Three figures read at one date. Planned value is what the baseline said would be finished by now, earned value is what did finish, actual cost is what finishing it cost.