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Energy & Grid Management
Rao Konidena
Rao Konidena
 · Posted in Energy & Grid Management

The list of transmission providers evaluating Grid Enhancing Technologies is increasing

A quick summary of comments from Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANOPR) issued last August and NOPR on transmission line ratings issued in late 2020 indicates a lot of transmission providers are evaluating Grid Enhancing Technologies. FERC Order 881 mandating  Ambient Adjusted Ratings issued last December is a step in the right direction.

  1. In the ANOPR, National Grid believes that energy storage and any other relevant Grid-Enhancement Technologies should be considered as potential solutions in regional transmission planning processes, thereby potentially avoiding the need for more expensive and longer lead-time upgrades
  2. Xcel said in ANOPR that the congestion studies would utilize production cost models and historical congestion patterns to identify new transmission or grid enhancing technologies that (1) lower costs to customers, (2) ensure funding for long term financial transmission rights or (3) improve operational reliability
  3. Potomac Economics comments are relevant in this docket because PE has recommended MISO adopt dynamic ratings in their State of the Market (SOM) reports at MISO. PE's SOM states that only two MISO TOs use dynamic ratings.
  4. SPP supports the inclusion of certain grid-enhancing technologies where their operation and impact in real-time can be appropriately translated into the type of model and analysis process typically utilized in planning. For example, SPP has considered and implemented phase-shifting transformers and dynamic reactive power compensation as solutions in planning studies.
  5. In ANOPR, PPL Electric opposes the mandatory use of products like Smart Wires as a replacement for traditional transmission investment at this time. By contrast, PPL Electric does support increased use of dynamic line ratings where appropriate and, to its knowledge, is the only transmission owner to utilize dynamic line ratings to offset significant transmission investment.
  6. In NOPR, AEP has tested DLR with PJM and LineVision on the Cook to Olive transmission line. AEP comments indicate that the results from Cook to Olive DLR were significantly greater than static ratings. AEP also said in their comments that they are working with SPP on a similar evaluation.
  7. In NOPR, Dominion Energy Virginia says in their comments that they are analyzing 3 pilot programs using DLRs on their transmission system.
  8. At NYISO, GETs are already eligible for inclusion in the interconnection process in identifying upgrades to mitigate reliability and deliverability issues. The NYISO considers these new technologies as potential alternatives to other upgrades and where consistent with Good Utility Practice and least cost, they can be selected as the applicable upgrade. For example, the NYISO has identified phase angle regulators (“PARs”), series reactors, series compensators, and static synchronous series compensators as Network Upgrade Facilities, System Upgrade Facilities, and/or System Deliverability Upgrades.

Ambient Adjusted Ratings and Dynamic Line Ratings are examples of Grid Enhancing Technologies.

FERC defines AARs as, “propose to define an ambient-adjusted line rating, or AAR, as a transmission line rating that:  (1) applies to a time period of not greater than one hour; (2) reflects an up-to-date forecast of ambient air temperature across the time period to which the rating applies; and (3) is calculated at least each hour, if not more frequently.” in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) on Transmission Line Ratings issued in November 2020.