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| 04-01 | Deregulating Electricity Markets: Naïve Hopes vs. Market Reality
Seminar: February 3, 2004
Contrary to deregulation proponents, restructuring electricity markets will raise costs and prices in the short term (unless regulators control price). Five important causes are: 1) the higher returns demanded by investors due to greater uncertainty, 2) paying market price for all power rather than the costs of each generating plant, 3) problems with management of generation companies, 4) restructuring costs for companies, and 5) the additional costs of creating new institutions, such as ISOs and RTOs. A sixth cause is suppliers exercising market power to raise price and profit, as occurred in California. The long-term dynamics of competitive markets might reduce cost and price below the regulated level, but considerable savings would be required to get there. We estimate the likely success and cost of six proposals for curtailing market power: 1) requiring generators to supply power at variable cost during peak demand periods, 2) building additional generation or 3) transmission, 4) getting demand to be more price responsive, 5) reducing supplier size by forcing them to sell most generation plants, and 6) long-term contracts. We estimate the costs of the problems and proposed solutions. | Lester Lave | 2/21/2004 | 1.1M | PDF |
| 04-02 | New Tools for Analyzing Power System Dynamics
Seminar: March 2, 2004, from 2-3 EST (19:00-20:00 UTC)
Power system design and operating decisions are often influenced by simulation of system dynamic response. Ideally the effects of parameter inaccuracy should be taken into account, but that is computationally intractable using traditional simulation techniques. The seminar will present a feasible approach to identifying and visualizing the influence of parameter uncertainty. In a general sense, the aim of dynamic analysis is to ensure that system performance specifications are satisfied. (For example, incidental protection operation should be avoided during post-fault transients to prevent cascading outages.) Ad hoc approaches to achieving those performance requirements are common. The seminar will show that such system design questions can be formulated as "inverse problems", and analyzed systematically using iterative techniques. | Ian Hiskens | 3/1/2004 | 228.0k | PDF |
| 04-03 | Evaluating Protective Relay Operation Through Testing
PSERC Tele-Seminar, April 6, 1:00-2:00 Central DaylightTime
Protective relaying performance is critical in maintaining reliability of service and preventing major damages to the system. The relay performance can be evaluated through monitoring relay operation over a given period of time and determining the dependability and security. The dependability is defined as an ability of a relay to correctly operate upon an occurrence of a fault. The security is defined as an ability of a relay to recognize disturbances that are not caused by a fault and not to operate under such circumstances.
Occasionally, dependability or security of protective relays is compromised and as a result the relays miss operate. Consequences, as experienced during major blackouts such as the one taking place in Northeast on Aug. 14, 2003 may indeed be far reaching with over 50 million people left without power for several days in the mentioned case. In such instances, evaluating relay operation, and particularly troubleshooting the miss operation so that the causes can be understood and mitigated, becomes a major task.
The role of relay testing in evaluating protective relay performance is the subject of this presentation. Two basic types of tests are considered: phasor and transient based. Phasor testing is routinely performed by the utilities as a part of the regular maintenance. It enables calibration of settings and verifies the relay operating characteristic. However, phasor based testing is not capable of assessing neither the relay dependability nor security. For this purpose, transient testing is used. The presentation indicates how the transient testing may be performed and what are the basic tools for performing such tests. Examples of test results obtained by testing five distance relays produced by different manufacturers are given. Conclusions about the differences between the types of tests are drawn and the benefits of each type of tests are pointed out. | Mladen Kezunovic | 4/7/2004 | 1.0M | PDF |
| 04-04 | Role of GPS Synchronized Measurements in Power System Visibility
PSERC Tele-Seminar. April 30. 1-2 pm Central Daylight Time.
GPS synchronized measurements have become available to power systems about 15 years ago. Today the technology is readily available at very low cost in specialized equipment as well as in relays and meters. The technology provides new opportunities towards the development of robust, high precision and reliable tools for real time modeling of the power grid. The talk will review the available technology and some of the early uses of this technology, including the first Harmonic Monitoring system for the NYPA transmission system via GPS synchronized measurements. While GPS synchronization provides the means of directly measuring the state of the system the measurements are imperfect. Estimation methods provide a useful methodology to improve the quality of the data and identify and reject corrupted data. Since available real time data may be mixed (SCADA, IEDs, GPS-synchronized) it makes sense to utilize all data in the development of the real time model of the power grid. In this respect, recent developments on hybrid state estimators will be discussed. Numerical experiments on an actual power system will be presented. Finally, visualization and animation methods are utilized to better communicate the real time status of the power grid to operators. | Sakis Meliopoulos | 5/3/2004 | 1.8M | PDF |
| 04-05 | Development of Simple Diagnostic Tool for Detecting Insulators with Contamination Problems
Utilities are continually looking at methods for improving the reliability of their transmission and distribution lines. Preventing flashover of insulators in service under nominal ac voltage would greatly help in this regard. A literature search has shown that although insulators account for only about 10% of the assets, 50% of all maintenance performed by utilities is related to insulators and 40% of all outages are due to insulators. The aspect of when to perform preventive maintenance is something that is still dictated by experience rather than any scientific data. The methods that are currently used as decision-making tools are primitive and/or unreliable resulting in either unnecessary and expensive actions (like frequent washing and replacement) or outages due to poor prediction capability. Most US utilities utilize non-ceramic and ceramic insulators in their system; therefore it is desirable that any diagnostic method developed be applicable to both types. A proposed technique described in this seminar fits this criterion. | Ravi Gorur | 7/12/2004 | 144.1k | PDF |
| 04-06 | Power System Neutral/Ground Voltages: Causes, Safety Concerns and Mitigation
PSERC Tele-Seminar, Tuesday, Sep. 7, from 2-3 pm Eastern, 11-12 Pacific
Neutrals and/or grounds of electrical power installations are typically elevated to some voltage due to a variety of reasons. The voltage elevation is present during normal operating conditions and during fault conditions. These voltages are transferred to objects that are normally “touched” by humans, such as equipment cases, metallic structures, lighting posts and any other metallic objects in the vicinity of electrical installations. Depending on the level of these voltages, the neutral/ground voltages may pose safety concerns. Electrical accidents have occurred from these voltages that resulted in injuries and/or deaths. In this seminar, we will examine the causes of the elevated neutral/ground voltages and we will discuss the safety concerns as a result of these voltages. A representative number of electrical accident scenarios will be discussed without identifying the system and the entities involved. The status of standards addressing these issues will be also discussed. Finally, the seminar will focus on analysis methodologies to evaluate the level of neutral/ground voltages. An integrated model will be presented that explicitly represents phase conductors, neutrals, ground conductors, and grounding arrangement. The integrated model and associated analysis methodologies will be used to discuss mitigation methods. Specific mitigation methods and their effectiveness to alleviate these problems will be discussed. | Sakis Meliopoulos | 9/7/2004 | 1.9M | PDF |
| 04-07 | Metering, Smart Metering, and Distribution Control – An Analysis
PSERC Tele-seminar, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2-3 Eastern Time (11-12 Pacific Time)
Conventional wisdom states that so-called smart metering is not cost-effective for residential or smaller users. The continued march of telecommunications and information technology is poised to change this, allowing more than mere automated meter reading (AMR) but rather facilitating what some call automated meter management or smart metering. In addition to arbitrary accuracy and time intervals, such technologies can allow control as well, either through simple remote connect/disconnect or current limiting, all the way to in-home automation or appliance control. Italy has implemented one of the largest smart metering deployments in the world, at costs ~100 user, and we present some data on their rollout. In addition, we present a cost-benefit analysis from another international utility, and speculate on US implications. The analysis shows that in addition to techno-economics, other technical (design) and policy decisions (such as real-time pricing) affect the viability of such systems. | Rahul Tongia | 10/5/2004 | 776.8k | PDF |
| 04-08 | Structuring Electricity Markets for Demand Responsiveness: Experiments on Efficiency and Operational Consequences
PSERC Tele-seminar, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2-3 Eastern Time (11-12 Pacific Time)
Efficient markets require the active participation of many buyers and sellers who have complete information. Unfortunately, electricity markets in the U.S. fall far short of this theoretical ideal. Instead of active participation by end-use customers, utilities or load serving entities (LSEs) merely estimate the quantity demanded by all of their customers and enter that quantity bid into the wholesale market for energy. This analysis, using experimental techniques, explores the effect of active customer participation on improved efficiency with less oversight. Three alternative demand-side market structures were evaluated: 1) customers pay the same fixed price (FP) in all periods - the base case; 2) a demand response feature (DRP) is added to the fixed price case in periods of supply shortages where buyers receive a pre-specified credit for reduced purchases; and 3) a real time pricing (RTP) case where prices are forecast for the upcoming day/night pair, then buyers select their quantity purchases sequentially, but are charged the actual market-clearing price, period-by-period. Overall, the RTP structure resulted in the greatest market efficiency, despite the difficult cognitive problem it poses for buyers. In addition, price spikes that appear under FP were reduced in most cases under RTP and DRP, and having experienced both pricing structures, participants opt for RTP going forward. Finally, the predictability of electricity flows on several transmission lines was explored as a function of overall system load for the three two-sided market regimes and under a simulation of the former cost-based regulatory regime. The results suggest that a conceivable benefit of deregulation requiring further study is the extent to which active customer participation can improve the predictability of flows and reduce the design capacity of many lines for a given average load. | Richard E. Schuler | 11/1/2004 | 637.0k | PDF |
| 04-09 | Integrating Wind Energy in the Australian National Electricity Market
PSERC Tele-seminar, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2-3 Eastern Time (11-12 Pacific Time)
Wind energy is proving to be the most cost-competitive of the "new" renewable energy forms in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) and may soon achieve relatively high levels of penetration in the South Australian region of the NEM. This seminar will discuss the implications of this scenario for market outcomes and power system operation, and the steps that are being taken to manage this situation. | Hugh Outhred | 11/2/2004 | 508.5k | PDF |
| 04-10 | Optimal Bidding Strategies in Electricity Markets
PSERC Tele-seminar, Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2-3 Eastern Time (11-12 Pacific Time)
My talk will focus on bidding strategies in electricity markets. I address five specific concerns:
(a) Bidding into multiple markets (energy and reserve markets),
(b) The impact of market design rules, in particular
· 3-part bidding or NY/PJM style rules versus 1-part bidding rules, and
· the typical requirement that bids be non-decreasing in price with increasing MW amounts offered,
(c) The discontinuity/non-convexity of cost curves (often the results of start-up and shut-down costs),
(d) The effect of inter-temporal constraints (e.g., start-up times, ramping rates), and
(e) The effect of price uncertainty.
The analysis of this problem requires the use of nested Dynamic Programming (DP) techniques. In particular, we show to use the innermost-nested DP to find a bidding function that satisfies market design rules. | Rajesh Rajaraman | 12/14/2004 | 375.6k | PDF |
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