Week 3-4 Flashcards
Base load
minimum amount of power that to meet minimum demand, load that is always on
Intermediate load
portion of the load that predictably rises from low point to the high point of daily demand.
Load-following
Occurs during intermediate load times, when technology has to be ramped up/down to meet this demand.
Electric Grid
= power
o Purpose: provides power and energy demanded at high reliability and low cost
o The grid matches daily supply and demand
o Grid = Natural Monopoly
Natural Monopoly
o “decreasing cost industry” – it is always cheaper to add more people onto the existing vendor than it is to find a second source
o it’s the most economic to have only one provider = monopoly
Rules for Grid operation
- Electricity supply must always equal electricity demand
- Small failures in one part of system cascade through the system. Because if simultaneous linkages, a small failure in one part of the system can cascade through the rest, triggering even larger shortfalls
- System failures are very damaging. Cascading events can result in complete loss of service, blackouts, or lower delivered voltage, brownouts, which harms services and economic activity and damages devices
PUCHA
=Public Utility Holding Company Act (1934)
o State regulators engaged in a regulatory bargain with utilities and rate payers and established the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA – 1934) as well as the Federal Power Act (1935), which led to more closely governed utilities but recognized natural monopoly economics by allowing single operator distribution networks. This resulted in universal electrification in the US and build today’s national grid system, as utilities could operate with more certainty and regulators had increased planning and system oversight.
Challenges/Constraints for the grid
o LT capacity margins are still inadequate (we’re running out of capacity)
o Integration of renewables and nuclear create constraints, because they are intermittent
o Regulatory constraints: meet air quality standards, use less water (thermal PPs require a lot of water)
o Transmission situation needs further work
o Aging workforce presents skills gap (deteriorating intellectual and human capital)
Reserve margin
Margin on top of peak demand
PUC
= Public Utilities Commissions
o State entities
o Governance and oversight (e.g. COSR (rev. determination), rate base and rate design)
o Funding decisions of the utility
o Establish rules for integrated resource planning (IRP)
o Meeting env./social objectives
o Maintaining operator reliability
o Ensuring dual goals of grid regulation: cost efficiency & highest service availability
FERC
=Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
o Integrated network oversight. Ensure functioning wholesale & transmission markets:
o They regulate
• Wholesale generation
• Wholesale power
• Wholesale transmission
o Independent government agency
o Created non-profit NERC = North American Electric Reliability Corporation
• NERC manages Bulk Power Systems (BPS) reliability
• In charge of: system reliability and resource adequacy
• At regional level, this is done by RRCs= Regional Reliability Councils
NERC
=North American Electric Reliability Corporation
• In charge of: system reliability and resource adequacy
NERC manages Bulk Power Systems (BPS) reliability
• It’s been created by FERC
• It’s a non-profit
PURPA
= Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (1978)
o Increased competition, as vertically-integrated utilities were abundant
o Allowed access by third-party generators
o This process changed the structure of regulated utilities, also referred to as deregulation, structuring or liberalization
Unbundling
to introduce competition in electricity delivery, distribution functions were separated from transmission and generation = unbundeling
o T&D stays a natural monopoly
o Generation = free market
IOU
Investor owned utility
POU
Publicly owned utility
ISO
Independent System Operators (Optimization of system)
RTO
Regional Transmission Organizations
- administer the transmission grid on a regional basis
Vertically-integrated utilities
Do everything: generation, T&D, demand-side & optimization
Electricity supply chain risks
o Supply risks • Resource availability • Intermittency • Resource predictability • Water requirements o Demand side • Load uncertainty • Changing demand patterns o Capital risks: • Physical capital constraints, like loss of generator access, loss/ congestion of transmission, cascading failures, adequate reserve margins, system security • Regulators risks • Human capital risks • Financial capital constraints
Spinning reserves
Generation reserves required to be available and able to provide rapid replacement in case of unexpected loss of generation capacity
Operating reserves
Reserves required to ensure that sufficient assets are in place to meet the needs of customers (includes spinning and non-spinning reserves)
Bus-Bar
Points that connects a generator to the grid and generally used as points to measure cost & price of electricity
Dispatch
The combination of all the different technologies to generate electricity to meet the load