New Constraint Management Techniques for Meshed Transmission and Active Distribution Networks

An Online Technical Webinar

Wednesday 9th December 2020 | 12.30 to 13:30

 

Constraints on the Transmission network are costly, requiring potential capital investment in the longer term, and in the short term output management of generators in areas impacted by these constraints. In the UK, on average between £1m and £2m per day is spent in payments to generators, connected customers and others to ensure that overall integrity of the Transmission network is maintained. Issues such as thermal capacity, stability criteria such as voltage and dynamic all must be managed and can impact on constraints.

There are many techniques for minimizing constraints usually based on traditional analysis and network management, but System Operators throughout the world are looking to find other techniques to minimise the costs while maintaining the expected reliability and resilience.

Topology optimisation is a software technology that finds grid reconfiguration options which may lie deep in the network to route flow around congested/overloaded facilities and that would not be identified using current techniques.

These reconfigurations, implemented by opening or closing selected circuit breakers, enable power flow control using existing equipment and increase the utilization of meshed transmission and distribution network.

By optimally adapting the grid topology to meet system conditions and needs, the transfer capabilities increase in the desired directions, providing significant cost savings and reliability and resilience improvements to consumers. This presentation will illustrate the technology principles and discuss its impacts using case studies conducted with National Grid ESO and system operators in the US.

Typically, we find increases in available transfer capacity of over 10%, load shedding relief under emergency conditions and extreme events, reductions in renewable curtailments, and congestion cost savings of over 50%.

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Speaker Profile’s

Robin Maclaren, NewGrid 

Robin MacLaren, has many years’ experience of operational Transmission Networks across the world. Formerly MD of ScottishPower T&D, and founder Chair of the ENA, and regular participant in CIGRE in Paris, as an engineer, he led the ScottishPower technical team to successfully resolve 2000 MW inter area oscillations and remove 1000MW dynamic stability boundary constraints between Scotland and England. He has maintained a close interest in technical work on constraints as UK networks have evolved and has more recently worked hands on resolving dynamic stability constraints in various countries. He is currently working with NewGrid on the applicability of solutions applied to Transmission and interconnected Distribution, and recently has been part of a BEIS panel reviewing Transmission and Distribution standards needed to meet net zero targets.

Dr. Pablo A. Ruiz, NewGrid

Dr. Pablo A. Ruiz is co-founder, CEO and CTO of NewGrid, a software startup providing topology optimization solutions, as well as Associate Research Professor at Boston University and a Senior Consultant at The Brattle Group. He was the Principal Investigator for the U.S. Department of Energy research and development project on Topology Control Algorithms that led to the formation of NewGrid. He supports system operators, electric utilities and market participants in North America, Europe and Latin America on constraint management in operations and planning to improve economic efficiency, reliability and resilience. Pablo holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Jay Caspary, Grid Strategies

As a Vice President at Grid Strategies LLC, Jay Caspary provides analysis and strategic guidance on transmission grid planning and operations to support a clean energy portfolio. Jay has 40 years of experience in transmission planning, engineering, management, tariffs, transmission services, and retail marketing. Most recently he oversaw Research, Development & Tariff Services for the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), the system operator in the U.S. Great Plains. He also served as SPP’s Director of Engineering and head of Transmission Development. In 2012-2013, Jay served as Senior Policy Advisor for the U. S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) with a focus on grid modernization. Prior to SPP, he served in several staff and managerial roles at Illinois Power in the U.S.

This Webinar series is kindly sponsored by Burns & McDonnell