Gary Jordan

Accommodating wind's natural behavior

Integration of wind-power plants into the electric power system presents challenges to power-system planners and operators. These challenges stem primarily from the natural characteristics of wind plants, which differ in some respects from conventional plants. Wind plants operate when the wind blows, and their power levels vary with the strength of the wind. Hence, they are not dispatchable in the traditional sense, which lessens the ability of system operators to control them while maintaining the systems balance between load and generation.

Up with wind

In this article, we focus on three important aspects of large regional wind-integration studies: wind data development, transmission analysis, and the modeling of wind-integration scenarios. Careful development and validation of the wind data inputs to an integration study are essential to obtain meaningful results. New transmission will be required for much of the future wind development; hence, it is imperative to plan for this transmission because it takes longer to build new transmission than it does to build wind plants. The transmission analysis can include a transmission-expansion plan to be done as part of the wind-integration study or can use existing transmission plans and analyze potential congestion. Finally, scenario modeling investigates the operational impacts of wind variability and uncertainty. The production cost models can be either deterministic or stochastic in nature. They can examine a wide range of sensitivities.including unit commitment and operating reserve considerations, different market scenarios, carbon reductions for different scenarios, storage considerations, forecasting, and the contribution of wind to system reliability.

Eastern Renewable Generation Integration Study

This presentation provides a high-level overview of the Eastern Renewable Generation Integration Study process, scenarios, tools, goals, and a teaser of preliminary results.

Finding Flexibility: Cycling the Conventional Fleet

Adding new generation, load, or transmission to the grid changes the operation of the incumbent power system. Wind and solar generation plants are no different, but their impact on the rest of the grid is exacerbated by the facts that wind and solar energy is nondispatchable and such generators produce variable output. And because wind and solar effectively bid into the market at very low or negative cost, they are preferred resources in the dispatch stack. They are used by system operators whenever possible, unless there are generator operating limits or transmission constraints.

Impact of High Solar Penetration in the Western Interconnection

This paper presents an overview of the variable characteristics of solar power, as well as the accompanying grid dynamic performance and operational economics for a system with significant solar generation. The paper will show results of economic operational simulations of a very high solar generation future for the western half of the United States.

Evaluating wind capacity value in New York and California

A conventional detailed reliability analysis is used to evaluate the capacity value of new generation based up location and forced outage rates. Adaptation of those methods can show the capacity value of additional wind generation. However, it would also be helpful to have an easier, faster methodology to estimate the capacity value of wind generation. Analytical results from both a detailed reliability analysis and from an approximate technique are presented. The locational and chronological aspects associated with evaluating intermittent non-dispatchable generation such as wind are discussed. Examples from two recent large-scale wind integration studies in New York and California are presented.

ISO New England Wind Integration Study

The New England and neighboring power systems have significant potential for developing substantial inland and offshore wind resources. The goal of the New England Wind Integration Study (NEWIS) is to identify and address operating issues arising from large scale wind integration. This summary paper provides an overview of the wind penetration scenarios, highlights the major study results, outlines issues that are beyond the scope of the study, and identifies next steps.

Impact assessment of expanding PJM market area by incorporating incremental loss model

Since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued order 2000, in December 1999, on the formation of regional transmission organizations (RTOs), Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc. (Midwest ISO) and PJM RTO (parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland) have become the first two RTOs, unconditionally approved by FERC. Recently, electric utility, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), serving electrical load in greater Chicago metropolitan area, has been accepted to PJM RTO to integrate their control area into PJMs market area. The integrated market has been operational since May 1, 2004. PJM market monitoring unit (MMU) is charged with the task of evaluating the competitiveness of that expanded market area. As control areas of ComEd and PJM are not contiguous, a dedicated transmission pathway with 500 MW firm capacity between ComEd and PJM through American Electric Power (AEP) is also assumed in the study. There are numerous benefits to count, associated with that expanded market, particularly to consumers in Illinois. This paper presents the assessment of system-wide economic and cost impact if both PJM and Comed are operated as a single market area using incremental loss model. The results are shown for pre- and post-integration market conditions, using security-constrained unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithm model with locational marginal pricing (LMP) calculation.

Concorda — An integrated power systems analysis suite

Recently, ISO/RTOs have started conducting long-term regional planning studies to identify their systems capability to reliably serve load over the long term. A variety of studies is performed in the regional planning process to address the needs of the electrical system as a whole over the planning period, not just the needs for the transmission system. Each study has a specific purpose, but results from all the studies need to be integrated to obtain meaningful information. Fundamentally new analytical tools are not required for planning in a deregulated environment; however, the existing tools need to be better integrated. GE is addressing the needs of ISO/RTO planning community by integrating its existing power system analysis software so that they can seamlessly work together.