DOE Wide-Area Situational Awareness for Load-Generation Adequacy Using NERC Resources Adequacy Monitoring

This document describes the functions and design requirements to be incorporated in theDepartment of Energy Phase-2 Situational Awareness (DOE-SA) application for resource adequacy using NERC Resources Adequacy Monitoring Release 3.5 as a base. This project will complement and enhance DOE Phase-1 Wide-Area Real Time ACE-Frequency Monitoring System™developed and deployed by Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions-Electric Power Group (CERTS-EPG) and currently installed at Department of Energy Situation Awareness Room.

The DOE-SA Phase-2 will be designed to present simplified wide-area real time metrics, detection, alarming, trace and trend visualization solutions for situational awareness resource adequacy performance. This new DOE-SA application will enable management to:

Monitor wide-area resources adequacy and identify load-generation unbalances.
Initiate automatic notification and/or alarm when load-generation unbalances are large enough to risk customer load drops, and be able to follow in real time the status and trends of interconnections load-generation balance.
Identify and display automatic load shedding and corresponding customer drops when interconnections frequency reach under-frequency relays thresholds

Phase-2 of the DOE-SA application is designed to help provide DOE situational awareness information for load-generation resources adequacy and imbalances and help answer high level policy type situational awareness questions such as:

What is the current status of the four interconnections, reliability regions and reliability coordinators in terms of generation adequacy–normal, alert, emergency,and automatic load shed?
What is the magnitude and geographic location of load-generation imbalances?
What is the current trace and near-term trend of the four interconnections load-generation imbalance abnormalities–stable, improving, worsening?
What does the load generation unbalance translate into in terms of customer loads, number of customers, and location of customer?

The updated application is targeted for installation during summer 2006. The original target of June 30, 2006 is likely to be delayed by approximately four weeks due to delays in approval of the Contract from April to May. In addition, following the summer installation of the application, research will continue to receive user feedback and develop and prototype additional functionalities that will be incorporated into a Phase-3 release, including:

Incorporate additional resource adequacy performance metrics
Expand and Refine Data and Process to Estimate Load and Customers Drop
Explore Alternatives to Acquire and Integrate Jurisdictions Load Data
Research Tailoring of Adequacy Trace-Trend Dashboard for Situational Awareness
Research Integration of DOE Weather Maps Into SA Resources Adequacy

Phase-3 is targeted for completion by October 2006 but may be delayed to the end of the year due to delays in project start.Beyond phase-3 CERTS will be research technical feasibility for integrating Situational Awareness for transmission using NERC TLR data.