Krishnappa Subbarao

Incorporating Uncertainty of Wind Power Generation Forecast Into Power System Operation, Dispatch, and Unit Commitment Procedures

An approach to evaluate the uncertainties of the balancing capacity, ramping capability, and ramp duration requirements is proposed. The approach includes three steps: forecast data acquisition, statistical analysis of retrospective information, and prediction of grid balancing requirements for a specified time horizon and a given confidence level. An assessment of the capacity and ramping requirements is performed using a specially developed probabilistic algorithm based on histogram analysis, capable of incorporating multiple sources of uncertainty - both continuous (wind and load forecast errors) and discrete (forced generator outages and startup failures). A new method called the “flying-brick” technique is developed to evaluate the look-ahead required generation performance envelope for the worst-case scenario within a user-specified confidence level. A self-validation process is used to validate the accuracy of the confidence intervals. To demonstrate the validity of the developed uncertainty assessment methods and its impact on grid operation, a framework for integrating the proposed methods with an energy management system (EMS) is developed. Demonstration through EMS integration illustrates the applicability of the proposed methodology and the developed tool for actual grid operation and paves the road for integration with EMS systems in control rooms.

AEP Ohio gridSMART Demonstration Project Real-Time Pricing Demonstration Analysis

This report contributes initial findings from an analysis of significant aspects of the gridSMART® Real-Time Pricing (RTP) – Double Auction demonstration project. Over the course of four years, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) worked with American Electric Power (AEP), Ohio and Battelle Memorial Institute to design, build, and operate an innovative system to engage residential consumers and their end-use resources in a participatory approach to electric system operations, an incentive-based approach that has the promise of providing greater efficiency under normal operating conditions and greater flexibility to react under situations of system stress. The material contained in this report supplements the findings documented by AEP Ohio in the main body of the gridSMART report. It delves into three main areas: impacts on system operations, impacts on households, and observations about the sensitivity of load to price changes.

Residential real-time price response simulation

The electric industry is gaining experience with innovative price responsive demand pilots and limited roll-outs to customers. One of these pilots is investigating real-time pricing signals to engage end-use systems and local distributed generation and storage in a distributed optimization process. Attractive aspects about the approach include strong scalability characteristics, simplified interfaces between automation devices, and the adaptability to integrate a wide variety of devices and systems. Experience in this nascent field is revealing a rich array of engineering decisions to consider along with the application of complexity theory. To test the decisions, computer simulations are used to reveal insights about design, demand elasticity, and the limits of response (including consumer fatigue). Agent-based approaches lend themselves well in the simulation to modeling the participation and interaction of each piece of equipment on a distribution feeder. This paper discusses rate design and simulation experiences at the distribution feeder level where consumers and their HVAC systems and water heaters on a feeder receive real-time pricing signals.

Integration of wind generation and load forecast uncertainties into power grid operations

In this paper, a new approach to evaluate the uncertainty ranges for the required generation performance envelope, including the balancing capacity, ramping capability and ramp duration is presented. The approach includes three stages: statistical and actual data acquisition, statistical analysis of retrospective information, and prediction of future grid balancing requirements for specified time horizons and confidence intervals. Assessment of the capacity and ramping requirements is performed using a specially developed probabilistic algorithm based on a histogram analysis incorporating all sources of uncertainty and parameters of a continuous (wind forecast and load forecast errors) and discrete (forced generator outages and failures to start up) nature. Preliminary simulation using California Independent System Operator (CAISO) real life data has shown the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.

Integration of uncertainty information into power system operations

Contemporary power systems face uncertainties coming from multiple sources, including forecast errors of load, wind and solar generation, uninstructed deviation and forced outage of traditional generators, and unscheduled loss of transmission lines. With increasing amounts of wind and solar generation being integrated into the system, these uncertainties have been growing significantly. It is critically important to build the knowledge of major sources of uncertainties, learn how to model them, and then incorporate this information into decision-making processes and power system operations, for better reliability and efficiency. This paper gives a comprehensive overview on the sources of uncertainties in power systems, their important characteristics and models, and approaches for integrating uncertainty information into system operations. It is primarily based on previous works conducted at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

Transactive Control and Coordination of Distributed Assets for Ancillary Services

The need to diversify energy supplies, the need to mitigate energy-related environmental impact, and the entry of electric vehicles in large numbers present challenges and opportunities to power system professionals. Wind and solar power provide many benefits, and to reap the benefits the resulting increased variability—forecasted as well as unforecasted—should be addressed. Demand resources are receiving increasing attention as one means of providing the grid balancing services. Control and coordination of a large number (~millions) of distributed smart grid assets requires innovative approaches. One such is transactive control and coordination (TC2)—a distributed, agent-based incentive and control system. The TC2 paradigm is to create a market system with the following characteristics: • Participation should be entirely voluntary. • The participant decides at what price s/he is willing to participate. • The bids and responses are automated. Such an approach has been developed and demonstrated by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for energy markets. It is the purpose of this project to develop a similar approach for ancillary services. In this report, the following ancillary services are considered: • spinning reserve • ramping • regulation. These services are to be provided by the following devices: • refrigerators • water heaters • clothes dryers • variable speed drives. The important results are summarized below: The regulation signal can be divided into an energy-neutral high frequency component and a low frequency component. The high frequency component is particularly well suited for demand resources. The low frequency component, which carries energy non-neutrality, can be handled by a combination of generators and demand resources. An explicit method for such a separation is obtained from an exponentially weighted moving average filter. Causal filters (i.e., filters that process only present and past values of a signal) introduce delays that can be issues in some signal processing applications that treat the high frequency part as a noise to be eliminated. For regulation, the high frequency component is an essential part of the signal. The delay in the low frequency component is not a problem. A stochastic self-dispatch algorithm determines the response of the devices to the regulation signal. • In an ensemble of devices under normal operation, some devices turn on and some turn off in any time interval. Demand response necessitates turning off devices that would normally be on, or turning on devices that would normally be off. Over time, some of these would have turned off on their own. A formalism to determine expectation values under a combination of natural and forced attrition has been developed. This formalism provides a mechanism for accomplishing a desired power profile within a bid period. In particular, a method to minimize regulation requirement can be developed. The formulation provides valuable insights into control. • Some ancillary services—ramping to absorb unforecasted increase in renewable generation, and regulation down—require the demand resources to increase their energy use. Some resources such as HVAC systems can do this readily, whereas some others require enabling technology. Even without such technology, it is possible to arrange refrigerators and water heaters to have an energy debt and be ready to increase their energy use. A transactive bid mechanism of revolving debt can be developed for this purpose. Dramatic changes in control systems, architecture and markets are expected in the electrical grid. The technical capabilities of a large number of devices interacting with the grid are changing. While it is too early to describe complete solutions, TC2 has attractive features suitable for adapting to the changes. The analyses in this report and the activities planned for FY 14 and beyond are designed to facilitate this transition.

Online Analysis of Wind and Solar Part I: Ramping Tool

To facilitate wider penetration of renewable resources without compromising system reliability concerns arising from the lack of predictability of intermittent renewable resources, a tool for use by California Independent System Operator (CAISO) power grid operators was developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in conjunction with CAISO with funding from California Energy Commission. This tool predicts and displays additional capacity and ramping requirements caused by uncertainties in forecasts of loads and renewable generation. The tool is currently operational in the CAISO operations center. This is one of two final reports on the project.

Improving performance of power systems with large-scale variable generation additions

A power system with large-scale renewable resources, like wind and solar generation, creates significant challenges to system control performance and reliability characteristics because of intermittency and uncertainties associated with variable generation. It is important to quantify these uncertainties, and then incorporate this information into decision-making processes and power system operations. This paper presents three approaches to evaluate the flexibility needed from conventional generators and other resources in the presence of variable generation as well as provide this flexibility from a non-traditional resource - wide area energy storage system. These approaches provide operators with much-needed information on the likelihood and magnitude of ramping and capacity problems, and the ability to dispatch available resources in response to such problems.

Online Analysis of Wind and Solar Part II: Transmission Tool

To facilitate wider penetration of renewable resources without compromising system reliability concerns arising from the lack of predictability of intermittent renewable resources, a tool for use by California Independent System Operator (CAISO) power grid operators was developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in conjunction with CAISO with funding from California Energy Commission. The tool analyzes and displays the impacts of uncertainties in forecasts of loads and renewable generation on: (1) congestion, (2)voltage and transient stability margins, and (3)voltage reductions and reactive power margins. The impacts are analyzed in the base case and under user-specified contingencies.A prototype of the tool has been developed and implemented in software.

Requirements for Defining Utility Drive Cycles: An Exploratory Analysis of Grid Frequency Regulation Data for Establishing Battery Performance Testing Standards

Battery testing procedures are important for understanding battery performance, including degradation over the life of the battery. Standards are important to provide clear rules and uniformity to an industry. The work described in this report addresses the need for standard battery testing procedures that reflect real-world applications of energy storage systems to provide regulation services to grid operators. This work was motivated by the need to develop Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) testing procedures, or V2G drive cycles. Likewise, the stationary energy storage community is equally interested in standardized testing protocols that reflect real-world grid applications for providing regulation services. As the first of several steps toward standardizing battery testing cycles, this work focused on a statistical analysis of frequency regulation signals from the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnect with the goal to identify patterns in the regulation signal that would be representative of the entire signal as a typical regulation data set. Results from an extensive time-series analysis are discussed, and the results are explained from both the statistical and the battery-testing perspectives. The results then are interpreted in the context of defining a small set of V2G drive cycles for standardization, offering some recommendations for the next steps toward standardizing testing protocols.