Browsing by Subject "Ancillary services"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

An experimental and analytical method for assessing the integration of electric vehicles into the bulk power system
(2017-01-09) Legatt, Michael Elazar; Baldick, Ross; Webber, Michael E., 1971-; Barber, Suzanne; Markman, Arthur; Santoso, Surya
In recent years, several trends are indicating a move towards a very different bulk power system. Increased integration of renewables, energy storage, synchrophasors, microgrids, Internet of Things devices, and electric vehicles are increasing the complexity of the system. While these changes have the potential to lead to significant reductions in environmental impact and peak demand growth, they also require significantly stronger, granular, and faster-moving controls to ensure reliability and resiliency. Previous research shows that electric vehicles have the potential to significantly reduce global (e.g., CO2), and regional (e.g., particulate) emissions associated with transportation. As fast-responding flexible loads, it was hypothesized that electric vehicles could participate in reliability-centric markets. To study the integration of these vehicles into the bulk power system, this project involved building an experimental charging system for electric vehicles with bulk modeling of the electric grid. This research test bed was developed in Taylor, Texas, to analyze real-world behavior of EVs in response to control signals. The diverse group of participating vehicles provided rapid response between 1/6 and 1/2 second, suggesting a strong capacity for providing grid reliability services. Successful real-world tests of primary frequency response and dispatched load control highlight the scalability of this approach. Vehicle charging patterns (as measured by load ramp and current waveform at peak) were observed to be clustered by vehicle make, indicating predictive value of high-resolution waveform measurement at the beginning of a charging session. Simulation of a network with intermittent renewables shows that inclusion of these rapidly responding EVs can strengthen system stability in normal, black start, and islanded situations. It shows that controlled EV charging can provide reliable means for improved renewables integration. The aggregation of electric vehicle charging can certainly provide fast-responding services that provide frequency support, congestion management, synthetic inertia, and many other useful services of significant value to the reliability of the bulk power system
ERCOT ancillary services and wind generation : the factors that influence the requirements
(2017-05) Huynh, Thuy Thi; Baldick, Ross; Li, Young
This report presents the impact of wind generation and the factors in the ERCOT market design that have influenced service requirement changes over the years. The CPS1 and contingency reserve requirements from NERC BAL Standards are introduced. The ERCOT ancillary services and the progression of the values from 2007 to 2016 are presented in the report. ERCOT’s economic dispatch and the various inputs and outputs of the dispatch in the Nodal market are explored. This also includes a description of how ancillary services are deployed within the realm of economic dispatch. The Nodal Protocol Revisions and System Change Requests that could influence reserve requirements are provided. The report presents a regression analysis of the ERCOT regulation reserves requirements in intervals of certain Nodal Protocol Revisions, System Change Requests, as well as using installed wind capacity, thermal capacity, daily load statistics and monthly ERCOT CPS1 scores. The regression analysis shows that there is room for more variables to be included and that the economic dispatch may benefit from including some factor of a predicted wind ramp within the dispatch interval.
Frequency control adequacy for increasing levels of variable generation
(2013-05) Chavez Orostica, Hector Patricio; Baldick, Ross
The integration of signi cant levels of variable generation into the electricity grid has increased the complexity of power system operations. The strong unpredictability of variable generation poses an important operating complexity and demands an adequate dimensioning and deployment of system reserves. This work establishes su cient conditions for the dimensioning and deployment of adequate reserves. These conditions involve the determi- nation of reserve requirements and the design of a frequency control system consistent with such requirements. The analysis is divided into the adequacy of primary and secondary reserves, and simulations of ERCOT validated by empirical data are considered. Adequacy criteria from current practices are used to evaluate the performance of the formulation.
Generation planning using Screening Curve Method
(2016-05-10) Zhang, Tong, active 2013; Baldick, Ross; Santoso, Surya; Ghosh, Joydeep; Hallock, Gary; Webber, Michael
The Screening Curve Method (SCM) is an intuitive and fast model that estimates the least-cost generation mix for generation planning purposes. As an approximation method, it calculates an optimized generation mix within a few seconds, but, in its original form, lacks many detailed considerations of the generation system. In order to improve SCM, many developments had been made in recent years. However, there were still some limitations to the SCM when compared to mathematical optimization models. Features like unit commitment, outage issues, ancillary services, and existing generation capacity were not considered in the SCM model. This dissertation proposes approaches targeted to solving these drawbacks. In addition, the basics of SCM and the cost definitions are discussed to prepare for the proposed new approaches. Finally, numerical calculations are performed on a real system case (ERCOT 2030) to illustrate the performance of the proposed models. We compare our simulation result with commercial software (PLEXOS) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the improved SCM.
Study of UPLAN based resources planning & analysis by power generation utilities in the deregulated electricity market
(2010-08) Chakrabarti, Sambuddha; Baldick, Ross; Kwasinski, Alexis
Generators bid into the deregulated electricity market in order to get committed & dispatched for meeting demands. In order to maximize their revenues & minimize the cost, systematic planning of the resources and analyzing the results is crucial to the success of any generation utility. UPLAN Network Power Model provides a convenient way to model & simulate the different expected conditions related to transmission, fuel costs & other variables which are of significant importance for generation planning and also allows us to analyze the way the output variables like capacity factors of generators, prices for Energy and Ancillary Services are affected by them. Based on a very simple model, this report describes the typical approach to UPLAN based resources planning & analyzes the significance of the results. Before that it also tried to understand the way UPLAN works for a very simple three bus model by stepwise introduction of complexity & analysis of results of the simulation runs. A few other issues like the Power Purchase Agreements, Congestion & Congestion Revenue Rights & the way Electricity is traded in the Deregulated Market are also presented.
Zero to sixty hertz : electrifying the transportation sector and enhancing the reliability of the bulk power system
(2015-08) Legatt, Michael Elazar; Baldick, Ross; Webber, Michael E
A revolution is underway in the energy sector. Traditional approaches for managing a bulk power system are beginning to give way to a "smart grid" world, in which controllers may have bidirectional communications, with engaged users. At the same time a second transformation has been underway and growing in strength, namely the transition from petroleum as a transportation fuel source towards natural gas for large fleet vehicles, and electricity for consumer vehicles. This thesis focuses primarily on the synergy between the "smart grid" and vehicle electrification transitions. Moving the transportation sector to electricity as a fuel source, at least in Texas, has a myriad of benefits: Charging an electric vehicle without significant growth in renewable or lower-emitting SOFC technologies leads to very significant (80% per mile, 58% per neighborhood) reductions in CO₂ emissions, as well as significant reductions in NO[subscript X] (41% per mile, 17% per neighborhood), PM₁₀ (73% / 62%), PM₂.₅ and UFPM (62% / 55%). SO[subscript X] levels rose by 37%, but could be mitigated with controlled EV charging strategies. Vehicle charging strategies also significantly improved the neighborhood's total emissions profile. Adding in distributed energy resources, microgrid generation and intelligent charging, when optimally allocated, can further reduce these emissions. Vehicle charging schemes that respond dynamically to distributed renewable generation can even be thought of as having zero emissions due to the continual balance of PV generation and EV load on the low side of the distribution transformer. This thesis argues that there may be additionally significant societal benefits by shifting vehicle transportation to electricity, likely far in excess of what could be achieved by controlling power plant emissions alone. Based on an analysis of the ERCOT region, this shift would be expected to produce significant cost reductions for overall energy, improve health (due primarily to the relocation of UFPM far away from major population centers), and lower societal costs. Further gains can be considered as electric vehicles are significantly more energy efficient than their ICE counterparts. Also, on a larger scale, it’s generally easier to reduce emissions from hundreds of fixed power plants than millions of moving ICE vehicles.