By Rich Heidorn Jr.

CAISO and BC Hydro officials recounted their first challenges as newly minted reliability coordinators, while ERCOT and SPP officials talked of surviving a difficult summer at the NERC Operating Subcommittee meeting Wednesday.

James E. Hartmann Jr., senior manager of system operations for ERCOT, said the Texas grid operator had a “difficult August,” which saw it set a new all-time peak of 74,531 MW on Aug. 12 and a new weekend peak of 71,864 MW. Level 1 energy emergency alerts were called on Aug. 13 and 15 because of increased forced outages and a reduction in wind production.

ERCOT also set a new September peak on Tuesday, hitting 68,546 MW, almost 1,600 MW above the old mark. “Unless something changes, we’ll hit a new September peak probably at least a couple more times this week,” he added.

SPP also reported a challenging summer, starting with flooding along the Arkansas River in late May that resulted in generation outages and a switch to conservative operations on several occasions. An EEA 1 was called Aug. 6, resulting in the RTO calling back from ERCOT some switchable generation. The balancing area hit an all-time peak on Aug. 19, topping the previous record by 40 MW.

The RTO went into conservative operations seven times during the summer because of generation outages, higher loads and subpar wind production.

Tests for New WECC RCs

CAISO, which became the RC of record for California on July 1, was tested that month by an earthquake and wildfires that forced the de-energization of two of the three lines at the California-Oregon Intertie (COI).

Tim Beach, director of reliability coordination for CAISO and its RC West, said the July 4-5 earthquakes caused no apparent damage to the bulk electric system, although a couple of 115-kV lines tripped and reclosed. An inspection afterward, however, found that some 230-kV disconnects “were unseated; in other words, they weren’t at their full stop and closed,” Beach said.

The wildfire forced two shutdowns of Malin-Round Mountain lines 1 and 2 over two days at the end of July. The Captain Jack-Olinda line remained in service.

Beach said CAISO worked with Peak Reliability and the Bonneville Power Administration to reduce the flow on the COI below the threshold that would trigger the separation scheme if the third line had been lost.

“With the open loop in that position — all the power from Oregon having to go all the way around the eastern side of the loop and come all the way up into California to the load centers — it’s a long way to move the power, so we try to balance the power, especially in California,” he said. “So, we get that interface down to less than 600 MW, on an interface that has a limit of 4,800 MW. It’s quite an evolution of redispatch when we go into that mode.

“Once you get the flow down and you’re not worried about the facility tripping and triggering the RAS [remedial action scheme], we worry about the RAS being triggered accidentally, because it’s really not needed at that time. So, we worked to disable the RAS while the flows are that low.”

If the RAS had triggered, it would have broken the West into islands, with California separating from the Southwest, he said. “Hopefully the islands will survive, and if there’s one that’s not going to survive, [we hope] that it goes down by itself — it doesn’t take the whole loop with it,” he said. “It was a pretty interesting operating period, but it was gratifying to see that we were able to work through it as a new RC and coordinate with everybody.”

RC West started shadow operations for its expanded footprint on Wednesday.

BC Hydro ‘Grateful’

Asher Sneed, manager of system operations for BC Hydro, said he was grateful for a “normal summer.”

“We’ve had three exceptionally dry summers [and] three years of exceptional wildfire activity. And after what was quite a warm and dry spring, it was nice just to have a … summer where we had pretty much normal precipitation levels,” he said.

BC Hydro did have one wildfire impact the BES shortly after beginning its RC shadow operations.

The fire in the Okanagan region of British Columbia caused the shutdown of one 500-kV and three 230-kV lines. “The system loads and temperatures were fairly moderate, so there was really no concern [over] a next contingency preparation. But it definitely was a good test for our RC in the shadow period,” Sneed said.

Other Regions

Other regions also provided updates.

Alberta started the year with forest fires in the northwest, but rains helped eliminate the threats. The province was considering a capacity market, but a new government decided to remain with its energy-only market.

Subcommittee Chair Chris Pilong, director of dispatch for PJM, said the RTO’s summer peak of 152,000 MW, set July 19, was about what was predicted in its 50/50 forecast and well below its all-time peak of more than 164,000 MW.

Lacy Skinner, assistant chief system operator for NYISO, reported an uneventful summer. Temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit only lasted for two or three days at a time with no prolonged heat waves, he said. For the first time, the summertime peak — 30,400 MW — was on a Saturday.

The ISO is conducting parallel testing of its new ABB emergency management system, nearing the end of a three-year project. The switch is expected to be complete in mid-October.

Michael McMullen, MISO’s director of regional operations, reported a “relatively calm” summer with the yearly peak July 19 below its 50/50 forecast.

John Norden, ISO-NE’s director of operations, said the RTO experienced its hottest month on record in July. Temperatures approached 100 F throughout New England on July 20-21, when loads hit about 24,000 MW. The two days placed among the RTO’s top five weekend loads.

In Ontario, a cool spring extended into June resulting in power surpluses that forced the shutdown of a nuclear unit on some weekends until heat pushed up loads in July.

Francis Monette, manager of system scheduling and operations for winter-peaking Hydro-Québec, also reported a quiet summer. “Sometimes we have thermal constraints in the south region in summer due to outages. However, this year, the outages in the south weren’t that bad, and we have a new 735-kV circuit that was commissioned at the end of May, which gave us more transmission availability in the south,” he said.

The Carolinas were bracing for Hurricane Dorian following an uneventful summer. Duke Energy’s Brunswick nuclear plant was expected to have to come offline because of hurricane-force winds. South Carolina entered a moderate drought stage about a month ago.