Reliability Standards for Geomagnetic Disturbances

Under section 215 of the Federal Power Act, the Federal Energy  Regulatory Commission (Commission) proposes to direct the North American Electric  Reliability Corporation (NERC), the Commission-certified Electric Reliability  Organization, to submit for approval Reliability Standards that address the impact of  geomagnetic disturbances (GMD) on the reliable operation of the Bulk-Power System.   The Commission proposes to do this in two stages.  In the first stage, the Commission  proposes to direct NERC to file, within 90 days of the effective date of a final rule in this  proceeding, one or more Reliability Standards that require owners and operators of the  Bulk-Power System… View Full Resource

Future Roles of Milli-, Micro-, and Nano-Grids

Although it has slowed considerably, consumption of electricity continues to grow in developed economies. Further, there are some unknowns which might accelerate this growth, such as electrification of vehicle fleets and geothermal heat pump space and water heating. Most analysts anticipate that distributed energy resources (DER) will provide a large share of the expanded generation capacity required to meet this seemingly inexorably increasing electricity demand. Further, given the urgency of tackling the climate change problem, most of the added assets must be carbon-free renewables or nuclear, end-use efficiency improvements, or highly efficient fossil-fired technologies. In developed economies worldwide, the current …

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Enhanced Short­-Term Wind Power Forecasting and Value to Grid Operations

The current state-of-the-art wind power forecasting in the 0- to 6-h time frame has levels of uncertainty that are adding increased costs and risks to the U.S. electric grid. It is widely recognized within the electric grid community that improvements to these forecasts could greatly reduce the costs and risks associated with integrating higher penetrations of wind energy. The U.S. Department of Energy has sponsored a research campaign in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and private industry to foster improvements in wind power forecasting. The research campaign involves a three-pronged approach: (1) a one-year field measurement …

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Weathering the Storm: Report of the Grid Resiliency Task Force

On July 25, 2012, Governor Martin O’Malley signed Executive Order 01.01.2012.15 directing his Energy Advisor, in collaboration with identified agencies, to solicit input and recommendations from experts on how to improve the resiliency and reliability of the Maryland electric distribution system. Referencing the potential impact of climate change on regional weather patterns and the prolonged power outages brought by recent hurricanes, blizzards, and the Derecho, the Executive Order specifically charged the Task Force with evaluating:

The effectiveness and feasibility of undergrounding supply and distribution lines; Other options for infrastructure investments to improve resiliency of the grid; and Options for financing… View Full Resource

Grid 2020: Towards a Policy of Renewable and Distributed Energy Resources

 

The transformation occurring across the world’s electrical systems represents one of the greatest technological challenges industrialized societies have undertaken. Reconfiguring a grid designed to carry power one way from reliable generation sources managed by few agents to a system increasingly laden with unreliable wind and solar energy while involving millions more participants using advanced technologies will introduce a high degree of uncertainty and variability into the future grid. These changes potentially threaten reliability of electrical supply and must be carefully choreographed to avoid widespread perturbations in cost, reliability and efficiency. Yet policy mandates for more and more renewable and distributed …

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National Assessment of Energy Storage for Grid Balancing and Arbitrage: Phase 1, WECC

Electricity production from wind and other renewables technology has increased significantly to meet the renewable portfolio standards (RPS) targets imposed by 31 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Energy storage is attracting greater interest as an enabling technology for integrating variable renewable power into the electric grid, addressing grid reliability challenges, and increasing overall infrastructure utilization. The integration of renewable energy technology into the U.S. grid is one of the key drivers for the growing interest in stationary energy storage systems. Other countries are also interested in advanced energy storage systems for accommodating the variable nature of renewable resources …

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The Smart Grid: An Introduction

The Smart Grid: An Introduction. How a smarter grid works as an enabling engine for our economy, our environment and our future.

The DOE has been charged with orchestrating the wholesale modernization of our nation’s electrical grid. Heading this effort is the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. In concert with its cutting edge research and energy policy programs, the office’s newly formed, multi-agency Smart Grid Task Force is responsible for coordinating standards development, guiding research and development projects, and reconciling the agendas of a wide range of stakeholders.

Equally critical to the success of this effort is the …

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An Examination of Temporal Trends in Electricity Reliability Based on Reports from U.S. Electric Utilities

Since the 1960s, the U.S. electric power system has experienced a major blackout about once every 10 years. Each has been a vivid reminder of the importance society places on the continuous availability of electricity and has led to calls for changes to enhance reliability. At the root of these calls are judgments about what reliability is worth and how much should be paid to ensure it.

In principle, comprehensive information on the actual reliability of the electric power system and on how proposed changes would affect reliability ought to help inform these judgments. Yet, comprehensive, national-scale information on the …

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Understanding Bulk Power Reliability: The Importance of Good Data and A Critical Review of Existing Sources

Bulk power system reliability is of critical importance to the electricity sector. Complete and accurate information on events affecting the bulk power system is essential for assessing trends and efforts to maintain or improve reliability. Yet, current sources of this information were not designed with these uses in mind. They were designed, instead, to support real-time emergency notification to industry and government first-responders. This paper reviews information currently collected by both industry and government sources for this purpose and assesses factors that might affect their usefulness in supporting the academic literature that has relied upon them to draw conclusions about …

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The Future of the Electric Grid

 

The U.S. electric grid is a vast physical and human network connecting thousands of electricity generators to millions of consumers— a linked system of public and private enterprises operating within a web of government institutions: federal, regional, state, and municipal. The grid will face a number of serious challenges over the next two decades, while new technologies also present valuable opportunities for meeting these challenges. A failure to realize these opportunities or meet these challenges could result in degraded reliability, significantly increased costs, and a failure to achieve several public policy goals.

This report, the fifth in the MIT Energy …

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